UNGASS 2016: Will it stop the war on drugs?

Next year the world leaders will meet in April in New York City at UNGASS 2016 -The UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs -to assess and debate the international war on drugs. Governments worldwide are calling for a drastic rethinking of the ineffective approach taken globally to tackle the drug conflict. The last time a special session on drugs was held was in 1998, during which the focus was total elimination of drugs from the world.

17 years later, the war on drugs is not only still in existence, but thriving. Drugs are cheaper, easier to get and more potent than ever. Trillions of dollars are going into “fighting” the war on drugs, but “fighting” refers to incarcerating drug addicts, often living in poverty, which ultimately just contributes to a continuing cycle of poverty and drug addiction.

If you incarcerate those in poverty involved in the drug scene, employers won’t hire them with a criminal record, as well as landlords won’t rent to them. Thus, these individuals have no choice, but to turn back to drugs for either an outlet or income. The current system is simply kicking the poor when they’re down, while not punishing the “kingpins” running the whole organization and benefiting most greatly from it.

The main issue in this fight is poverty, which the current plan is not addressing. Studies show that third-grade reading scores predict the number of prisoners there will be in the future. Additionally, Dwight Hobbes, a journalist for MSR News, reports that, “a Black man without a diploma is six times more likely to be locked up that his White counterpart without a high school diploma.”

To tackle the problem with drugs we must focus on Government policies that only views drugs through the prism of criminality and too often through the race , thereby criminalising a generation of Black people who might be caught up with zero opportunities in life, and an authority which seeks to demonise them. This self fulfilling prophecy that criminalise many Black people is one of areas that must be effectively tackled during upcoming UNGASS 2016 meeting.

The meeting is a unique experience for change. Open Society Foundations, a group committed to building vibrant and tolerant societies, has come out saying, “Never before have so many governments voiced displeasure with the international drug control regime. Never before, to this degree, have citizens put drug law reform on the agenda ... Never before have the health benefits of harm reduction approaches been more clearer.”

The international community must refocus its efforts, become open to giving second chances to those in poverty, punish those feeding the drug scene and preventively educate communities to put an end to the enduring drug war.

Cassie Rodgers

https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/explainers/what-ungass-2016
http://spokesman-recorder.com/2015/11/28/kicking-poor-theyre/
https://stoptheharm.org/