2013-05-22T23:29:21-04:00 Damon Barrett http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=damon-barett Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Damon Barrett Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2806520 2013-03-05T04:41:58-05:00 2013-05-04T05:12:01-04:00

Damon Barrett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/damon-barett/
Torture and ill-treatment in the war on drugs is also widespread, but is often invisible, hidden behind a narrative of existential threat, and behind the systematic dehumanisation and marginalisation of people who are drug dependent.

A new report by the UN's torture watchdog is a major contribution to bringing such abuses to light. Presented on 4 March before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the report makes clear that for hundreds of thousands of drug users, beating, sexual violence, solitary confinement, and other cruel and torturous practices happen in centres supposedly for drug dependence treatment and rehabilitation.

These centres have been supported by donor nations blindly throwing scarce financial aid at abusive regimes in the name of responding to the drug threat. This too serves to keep the abuse hidden, international funding providing a façade of legitimacy to illegitimate and illegal practices.

In his report to the UN, which focuses on torture in healthcare settings, Juan Mendez, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, calls on governments to immediately shut down abusive drug detention centres and to investigate alleged abuses in privately run facilities. Importantly, Mendez calls on donors to cease support for the operation of these centres or the creation of any new ones.

Monitoring groups like Human Rights Watch have published several reports about the shocking conditions in these so-called treatment centres. In Vietnam and China, people are detained against their will, forced to work long hours in the service of private companies and punished if they fail to meet strict work quotas. In Vietnam, each centre is mandated to have a punishment room, where former detainees tell of kneeling on sharp stones or being held in stress positions. In Cambodia, children and adults have been beaten with cables and raped, forced to donate blood, and physically punished. In Laos, researchers learned of numerous successful and attempted suicides in the centres, including by ingesting glass, swallowing soap, or hanging. In all of these instances, there is little in the way of evidence-based drug treatment - forced labour, military-style exercises and isolation are the methods used.

It is therefore no surprise that Mendez has called for the centres to be shut down and for no more money to go towards them. The surprise is that despite clear evidence, known for years, donors have continued to fund them.

It is something my own organization, Harm Reduction International, has specifically investigated in a report produced last year. We found, for example, that governments, including the US through its Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), have contributed money repeatedly over the past decade for the construction and renovation of drug detention centres in Laos. Money has even been provided to build the fences that prevent detainees from escaping the squalid conditions.

As recently as last year, months after Human Rights Watch exposed serious abuses at a "model" centre in the capital (known as Somsanga), INL gave another grant to support that very centre. Earlier last year, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) sponsored a fashion show to raise money for the centre.

In Vietnam, funds from Australia, Luxembourg and Sweden were channelled through the UNODC to "build the capacity" of centre guards in drug treatment approaches. Surely we should not have to point out that those who beat you in the morning will not be good counsellors in the afternoon.

At a time when global health spending is poor, this is not just money wasted, it is money spent on making things considerably worse.

Detention in the name of treatment is fundamentally flawed. Worse, it is fundamentally abusive. Renovations to buildings aren't going to stop the abuses inside, and training for guards won't address the fact that people are detained en masse against their will, forced to work for the profit of centre managers, and abused for infractions of rules.

Twelve UN agencies, including UNODC, issued a statement last year calling for drug detention centres to be closed and pledging to help support humane and evidence-based treatment alternatives in the community.

Donor governments must support this and take every measure to ensure that their money will not be spent on abuse in the name of treatment. A cloak of international funding only serves to keep the abuse hidden.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2468564 2013-01-15T09:02:31-05:00 2013-03-17T05:12:01-04:00

Damon Barrett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/damon-barett/
Bolivia has just secured an exemption in the international drug control system allowing for traditional uses of the coca leaf. The practices, such as chewing the leaf, had been in place for thousands of years among indigenous communities of the Andean region. But in the early 1960s coca was banned and all traditional practices were to be abolished due to fears about cocaine use in rich, consumer nations. This has long been considered at best an historical error, and at worst another injustice visited upon indigenous peoples.

The ban was written into the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (Bolivia had entered the treaty under a military dictatorship, reason enough to rethink). In order to secure its exemption Bolivia had to exit the treaty sign up again with a caveat or 'reservation' on this issue. According to the terms of the agreement, to which over 180 nations are now bound, a third of the parties would have to officially object for this proposal to be blocked. Less than 10% did this - only fourteen states. Thirteen obediently followed the US, which was first to try to block the move back in July 2012.

This was a simple political calculation: please the US and frustrate a small, developing nation. They all knew the reservation would pass, as so few governments were willing to interfere, so in reality little harm would be done. Reputational damage was a risk - this representing a clear disregard for cultural and indigenous rights - but seeing as this is all such a closed and little known process, that too would be a small risk for the goodwill bought with the most powerful nation on earth.

So far so shameful.

Sweden, though, had an extra risk, and one that matters a lot to people at home and to national economic interests. Within the European Union, it is the only state with a legal exemption for snus (a form of smokeless tobacco), which is otherwise banned. It is constantly under threat from tobacco control legislation.

The main justifications for the snus exemption are culture, health and economics. Snus has been used in Sweden for over 200 years and is an important element of cultural life in the country. In addition, it is much less harmful to health than smoking cigarettes, so a ban would be disproportionate to public health goals. Snus also represents a major economic benefit.

These are strong, valid arguments and all have been relied upon by the Swedish authorities at one time or another, including late last year in relation to a new EU tobacco directive. But with its formal objection to Bolivia's efforts the Swedish government has announced to the world, in an official UN legal document, that it doesn't actually agree with these arguments, and will vigorously oppose them.

In its objection notification Sweden argues that "the ambition expressed in the convention is the successive prohibition also of traditional uses of drugs." Even beyond being a central part of culture, however, coca is also considered sacred by indigenous communities in the Andean region. It is even more culturally embedded than snus in Sweden, which was the only one of the fourteen objecting states to call so openly for the relevant traditions in Bolivia to be put to an end.

Sweden further argues that the traditional use of coca threatens efforts to control cocaine. This is a reworking of the argument that allowing for sales of snus will undermine tobacco control, an argument that has long been resisted by Sweden. Even as it asks the EU to acknowledge the evidence on the relative lack of health harms associated with snus (as compared with cigarettes), it denies this argument to Bolivia. There is, of course, a world of difference between coca and cocaine.

Sweden consistently argues the economic benefit of the national snus market. In fact it wishes to see the export ban lifted. Bolivia, on the other hand, is a developing country. Coca is central to its economy, key to the basic survival of farming communities. This is not acknowledged by Sweden, even as it is at the forefront of the snus debate.

Bolivia has succeeded despite the objections. But Sweden, more than any other, got it backwards. It should not have been such an easy political calculation if snus had been factored in. Had Sweden instead backed Bolivia (by simply doing nothing) it would have solidified its defence of snus while not losing anything in its relations with other countries or harming its anti-drug profile.

By entering this objection, however, Sweden may have gained a small amount of favour from the US, and it may have further promoted its reputation for being tough on drugs, but it did so by contradicting itself, providing clear ammunition to those who would seek to enforce the ban on snus and ensure that the export ban is not lifted.

Sweden has made the defence of the entire 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs a central part of its foreign policy on drugs. This is unthinking, uncritical and blinkered. As a result the government's hypocrisy is in plain view - it is either disingenuous in its opposition to Bolivian coca and the relevant international ban, or in its defence of snus and its criticism of the EU ban. One wonders which is more important to voters at home.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2416876 2013-01-06T15:12:43-05:00 2013-03-08T05:12:01-05:00

Damon Barrett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/damon-barett/ coca leaf.

It is difficult to see a similar provision being agreed today. It is arbitrary, disproportionate and violates contemporary international legal norms. Governments are less willing today to be so overt in their disregard for indigenous communities. But to look tough on drugs and please the United States, the UK is still willing to defend it.

The Single Convention, still the bedrock of the international legal system on drugs, was based on the claim that in order to protect the health of people at home (read: rich, consumer nations) from the 'evil' of addiction (the treaty's words) it was necessary to eradicate production of certain plants in developing countries. This is the supply-side enforcement approach to drugs that has dominated since the mid 20th Century. We now know this to be quixotic, abusive nonsense even as it remains so vigorously pursued. Today, more than 180 countries have signed up.

To follow this through it was deemed necessary to abolish certain existing cultural practices relating to those plants. No matter the meaning to cultures, traditions, religions or indigenous peoples. No matter the evidence of the relative harms or lack thereof relating to these practices. The treaty required, in particular, that traditional uses of coca (such as chewing the unprocessed leaf) that had been in place for thousands of years, should be abolished within twenty-five (Coca Cola's use of the same leaves as a 'flavouring agent' was protected in the treaty). This was and remains deeply offensive to the Andean communities affected.

When Bolivia became a party to the treaty in 1976 it was under the dictatorship of Hugo Banzer. Today Bolivia has an indigenous President, Evo Morales, who has led efforts to correct what is widely seen as an historical injustice.

The way this has been pursued by the Bolivian government has been strikingly reasonable, with every effort made to do so in conformity with the treaty and with respect for international law. After a blocked effort to amend the treaty by agreement with the other parties, Bolivia has withdrawn temporarily and plans to join again with a minor caveat or 'reservation' protecting indigenous and traditional practices. It is not an ideal solution, but it is more than justified in the circumstances. The treaty is plainly wrong.

According to the terms of the 1961 agreement, a third of the parties (or over sixty nations) would have to officially object to this reservation for Bolivia to be barred from re-entering the treaty. This is no small matter as trade agreements can be contingent on countries remaining signed up.

Very few governments have made such an objection. Among those that have, to its considerable discredit, is the United Kingdom. It is joined by Canada, Sweden and Italy, all following the US, which was first to object back in July.

The UK entered its official objection notification with the UN on 14th December, four days after the Home Affairs Select Committee recommended that not only should the UK support Bolivia in this endeavour (this being one of the many wrongs of war on drugs and one of the easiest to solve), but that it should encourage other governments to do so too.

In its official notification to the UN the UK claims that allowing for traditional uses of coca would increase the production of coca plants and therefore diversion into illicit supply for cocaine production. This is an inevitable claim, setting out a foreign nation's interest in the matter. But it has little in the way of evidence or experience to back it up, and it is oxymoronic following commendation of Bolivia in the same document for its reductions in coca production over the years even alongside ongoing traditional use.

At a time when even the Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister disagree on the right thing to do about drugs at home, the certainty of the assertion is also deeply hypocritical.

It is also claimed that Bolivia's denunciation of the Single Convention would weaken international law on drug control and thus responses to the drug trade, without questioning the quality of that law for this aim, or why it says what it says. International law as it relates to human rights and indigenous rights, however, is not mentioned (by the UK or any of the other objecting states), but is of course central to this issue. This aspect of international law has moved on significantly since 1961, which the UK well knows. It adopted the now universally accepted UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007 which is directly applicable, along with multiple binding treaties to which the UK is also a party.

Curiously, the UK says in its objection that it 'acknowledges and respects the cultural importance of the coca leaf in Bolivia'. It also recognises the status of traditional uses of coca under the Bolivian Constitution. These are important words and reflect that change in views one would have expected since the 1960s. But in what way does the UK in fact 'respect' the cultural importance of coca when going on to try to see through the destruction of the manifestation of that culture?

Bolivia's reservation on the Single Convention will stand because most of the nations of the world support the move and/or see this as a very small issue not worthy or interfering with. The UK knows this. Everybody paying attention knows this. So the question must be why the UK would enter this objection. The move is futile. The aim is abusive and ineffective in addressing problems relating to cocaine. On the face of it, it is poor PR and bad for the UK's reputation. There is, therefore, only one realistic conclusion: making the US happy.

During 2012 more and more Latin American nations have directly challenged the US and said openly that they want an international review of drug control laws - to count the costs of fifty years of the war on drugs and look at alternatives. The UK, Sweden, Italy and Canada have joined the US in saying that even on the most obvious and easiest of changes, they do not intend to budge.

In a more immediate sense this allowed the US to save face in the relatively closed world of international drugs diplomacy. For five months the US had been embarrassingly alone on this. But with the UK, Canada, Sweden and Italy obediently following, the US can say, whatever happens, that it was not the only one willing to publicly and openly trample on indigenous rights to continue to appear tough on drugs.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2087887 2012-11-07T11:24:25-05:00 2013-01-07T05:12:01-05:00

Damon Barrett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/damon-barett/
But in this case the violation will be hailed by many as a positive step.

On 6 November various ballot initiatives were voted on in the US, from abolishing the death penalty to allowing assisted suicide, to legalising gay marriage. Three had the clearest potential to render the US in breach of international law if they succeeded. With the votes in Colorado and Washington which established a legally regulated framework for non-medical production and sale of marijuana, that breach has now occurred.

The laws in question are the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and the 1988 UN drug trafficking conventions (which has a longer, duller title). Alongside one other treaty (which deals with synthetics) these form the bedrock legal foundation of the global drug control regime. Most countries follow them very closely, including the US.

Some states have been pushing at the boundaries of these treaties for some time, however, on particular points of contention that have developed in the decades since the treaties were negotiated. Times have changed since 1961. Grey areas have been exploited, arcane scheduling systems utilised, and interpretations adopted that allow more room for manoeuvre.

But what sets these ballot initiatives apart is that there is no grey area to exploit, and it would take some legal gymnastics to interpret your way past that. This is straight up legalisation of recreational use, production, and sale, which is not permitted. It's what the system was set up in large part to prohibit, with marijuana receiving particular attention alongside coca and opium. While most substances are listed in annexed schedules, these three are written into the very terms of the treaties ('cannabis' is the term used).

The US (alongside over 180 other states) is required, under a very robust and politically supported regime, to 'limit exclusively to medical and scientific purposes the production, manufacture, export, import, distribution of, trade in, use and possession of drugs'.

There is more, of course, and there are various provisos and caveats on certain provisions, but this is a 'general obligation' of the regime around which all else revolves. In other words, the US is not just in breach of some marginal aspect of the system, now, but a fundamental requirement of it that goes to the heart of prohibition.

Millions of US citizens are now permitted to buy and sell marijuana for recreational purposes (regulations pending). These laws apply to a population far exceeding that of Sweden (where I am currently sitting) and way over twice the size of Ireland (where I'm from). This would be supported by neither government, which have signed contracts with the US in the form of these international agreements to the effect that none of them would allow it. The fact that this has happened at state and not federal level does not rectify the legal dilemma the US government now faces.

Many in the US and worldwide are celebrating the results in Colorado and Washington as the beginning of the end of the war on drugs - and appropriately through a democratic process. People have voted for the US to breach international law. That very few would have cared or knew about this is not relevant. This is the fact of it.

There are now four possible scenarios. The US Federal Government can fight it out, stepping all over state sovereignty. The US can withdraw from the treaties in question. The treaties themselves can be changed by international processes. Or the US can carry on in breach and turn a blind eye. I think the fourth is the most likely. Ironically, this leads inexorably to arguments for broader reform, but this is something the US overnment has ardently opposed, even signing a recent declaration with the Russians to that effect.

So the implications for international law and the place of the UN drugs conventions within it must be considered.

We would not celebrate an ongoing breach by the US of the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination or the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which it is also bound. Nor would we tolerate (though they happen regularly) violations of the Geneva Conventions, the Torture Convention, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or environmental protocols. Indeed, there is a hierarchy in international law that is exposed by the Colorado and Washington votes.

But it is one within which the drug control regime has an unnaturally elevated position due to the widespread political consensus around prohibition, and fears that have been intentionally fuelled over the years. Drugs, in the UN conventions, are seen as a threat to mankind, and an 'evil' to be fought. Over time, respect for the UN drugs conventions has been equated with respect for the rule of law itself. 'The three United Nations drug control conventions...set the international rule of law that all States have agreed to respect and implement' said the President of the UN's International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) in a recent speech. (The INCB is the body that monitors States' implementation of the drugs conventions). He has confused the rule of law with specific laws.

There are some things that are wrong in themselves (malum in se) and things that are wrong because they are prohibited (malum prohibitum). But when it comes to drug laws, fighting something that is prohibited has resulted in widespread acts that are wrong in themselves and that breach basic legal principles - the rule of law.

The racially discriminatory nature of drug laws is common knowledge. Some governments rely on the international regime to justify executions of people convicted of drug offences (in violation of international law, in fact). Police violence, mass incarceration, denial of due process are routine in States' pursuit of the general obligation the US now breaches.

The international legal arguments about the Colorado and Washington results will certainly arise. They must, though it will likely be in the rather closed and stale environment of UN drugs diplomacy. When that happens it must emerge is that these ballots are a victory for the rule of law even as they bring the US into conflict with the drugs conventions. Fundamental legal principles of proportionality, fairness and justice, not to mention democracy, have won out over arbitrary and unreasonable controls on human behaviour.

Ending the war on drugs, moreover, will be a victory for international human rights law. It will be a victory for international law itself - for environmental law, anti-corruption agreements, international security, for the achievement of international development agreements and improved health - all of which have been damaged by decades of prohibition. Colorado and Washington have taken us one step closer. For that we should all celebrate.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1398946 2012-04-03T19:00:00-04:00 2012-06-03T05:12:01-04:00

Damon Barrett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/damon-barett/
So, when the UN's drugs watchdog, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), was asked recently about its official position on torture carried out in the name of drug enforcement, one would have expected an unequivocal denunciation. Instead, what was given was an unequivocal refusal to do so.

In the light of documented cases of torture to extract information from suspects and to punish drug users and those convicted of drug offences, this refusal to condemn the most egregious of human rights abuses is cause for serious concern and highlights clear tensions between the UN human rights and drug control regimes.

The INCB is a quasi-judicial mechanism in the UN that oversees the implementation of the three international drugs conventions - the legal bedrock of the global drug control system.

Launching its flagship annual report in Thailand (the headlines focused on the Board's concerns about internet pharmacies) the INCB was apparently asked for its view on of the deputy prime minister's plans to cut appeal processes in order to speed up the executions of some 245 people on death row for drugs in the country.

The INCB member present refused to comment, deferring to national law and policy.

This struck many as odd. As a quasi-judicial entity, one would have expected the INCB to know that the death penalty for drug offences is not permitted in international law. Or that the UN Human Rights Committee, another UN quasi-judicial mechanism which oversees the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, had already called for its abolition in Thailand. Apparently not.

In response to emails and letters of concern, the INCB said that criminal sanctions are the 'exclusive prerogative' of States.

Just over a week ago in the margins of the annual UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), when pressed again on the death penalty, the President of the INCB - Professor Hamid Ghodse - again restated the official position. Such matters, he said, are not within the mandate of the INCB as the drug treaties do not specify which sanctions are ok and which ones are not.

So came the obvious question: 'Legal sanctions in different countries include... extrajudicial killings, torture - there is no atrocity large enough that you could possibly step outside your mandate and say something?'

With this question the INCB was presented with the logical conclusion of its position thus far. And when torture is presented you expect an immediate condemnation, especially from the United Nations grounded as it is in human rights. What Professor Ghodse said was: "No. 100% not. Because, just basically, we are not there to express our opinion."

So, what will the International Narcotics Control Board, a quasi-judicial UN entity, tolerate when it comes to human rights abuses committed in the name of drug enforcement?

The official answer appears to be anything. Executions, torture - no comment.

Of course, Professor Ghodse was quick to say that the INCB does not condone these practices. But this is a far cry from condemning them, and when it comes to human rights commentary, the INCB's record is already poor.

Aerial fumigation of illicit crops with herbicides in Colombia, one of the most biodiverse countries on earth, has been praised by the INCB while being criticised by multiple UN human rights monitors because of the effects on health, the environment, and human displacement.

Military-style raids in Brazilian favelas and Mexicos 'war on drugs' have been applauded by the INCB, while the body count of such measures hits the headlines.

The INCB has refused, in the face of clear opportunities, to condemn drug detention centres in various South East and East Asian countries where literally tens of thousands of people are detained without due process and beaten, forced to work and otherwise abused for months and sometimes years. Conversely, twelve UN agencies from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime to the International Labour Organisation have called for such centres to be closed down.

The INCB has praised Russia's drug policies in the midst of the government's belligerent refusal to tackle HIV/AIDS among injecting drug users with proven harm reduction measures such as clean needles and syringes and methadone. There are almost two million injectors in Russia, with around a million living with HIV.

These various positions of the INCB are seriously problematic, but the recent refusal to condemn torture and 'atrocities' is obviously nonsensical and comes across more as defensive posturing in the face of sustained criticism of the UN drug control regime within which the Board plays a central role than a sincerely held belief about the limits of its mandate.

Indeed, that human rights seems such a clear point of discomfort for the INCB, even when it comes to something as clear cut as torture, says as much about the board's competence (which must now be in question), as its does about the unavoidable human rights consequences of drug enforcement, and clear tensions within a UN system acting as guardian for both.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1355776 2012-03-18T16:45:57-04:00 2012-05-18T05:12:01-04:00

Damon Barrett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/damon-barett/ Guardian/Mixmag drugs survey, published this week, highlighted the fact that there are many people out there using drugs without significant health harms. Among them are 'legal highs' or, more accurately, 'new psychoactive substances'.

But the risks associated with such substances are very real. Not least of which is that people have little idea of what they are taking. This doesn't prevent anyone taking these drugs, it just increases the risk of doing so. It is of course, is a function of the lack of regulation of new psychoactives, and what blocks regulation here is two-fold: the speed at which new substances emerge, and criminal laws prohibiting sales of known substances. Indeed, these two things are connected.

The Guardian survey followed last Sunday's Observer article which reported that mephedrone is more popular now than when it was banned. Four in ten clubbers said that the formerly 'legal high' was their drug of choice. What is clear and confirmed in the drugs survey, is that banning mephedrone was at best ineffective.

It is therefore heartening that member states at the United Nations appear to have accepted that a different route should at least be on the table.

The failure of criminalising mephedrone was, of course, predicted at the time. We have decades of experience from around the world with such approaches across a number of drugs. Banning mephedrone was yet another example of the ineffectiveness of criminal laws and blunt prohibitionist policies in addressing drug related harms, and evidence that adding more and more chemical compounds to schedules of control is at best a waste of time and at worst harmful.

It was initially cause for some concern that the issue of new psychoactive substances had been tabled as a resolution at the annual UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs which ended on Friday.

Much like UK drug policy, the international system, housed at the UN, is governed by core legislation (three international drugs treaties) and a series of schedules for controlled drugs. Indeed, the UK system, like so many others around the world, has been developed in order to comply with international commitments.

Over time the list of substances under international control has ballooned. There are now hundreds of substances, compounds and a number of well known plants under international control. The UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, moreover, is not known for its progressive or imaginative approaches. This is, after all, members states attempting to reach consensus on issues about which there is, really, none. The annual UN drugs meeting is a laborious and tedious affair, restating 'agreed language' on the threat posed by drugs and the need for a 'balanced and integrated' response.

The worry in bringing 'legal highs' to the table at this meeting is that the international community would take the same route that has proven so ineffective at home in the UK and agree to bring more and more substances under international control, thereby requiring that all states do so.

It was therefore heartening that the original draft of the resolution, proposed by Australia, took a different route.

Instead of calling for new psychoactive substances to be banned, criminalised or otherwise brought under international control outright, the resolution instead asked states:

'to consider a wide variety of evidence-based control measures to tackle the emergence of new psychoactive substances, including the use of consumer protection, legislation regarding medicine and legislation regarding hazardous substances'

That, in essence, is recognition that the blunt instrument of criminal law is not the only legal tool available.

Unsurprisingly, the provision raised some eyebrows. Various states were not comfortable with the absence of criminal laws, so the agreed resolution now, in UN style, 'encourages' states:

'to consider a wide variety of responses, such as temporary and emergency drug control measures in response to an imminent threat to public health, the is of consumer protection, medicines legislation and hazardous substances legislation, and, where appropriate, to consider criminal justice measures aimed at preventing the illicit manufacture and trafficking of new psychoactive substances'.

This is clearly not a ringing endorsement of criminal justice responses. References are heavily qualified - 'in response to an imminent threat', 'where appropriate'.

True, this is hardly earth-shattering, but for this regime, it's quite something. UN member states have debated and agreed that all options should be on the table for addressing new psychoactive substances. And that is some distance from knee-jerk reactions such as the UK ban on mephedrone.

In a week when many UN member states and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime worked hard to defend the international drug control system from sustained criticism in recent months by 'celebrating' one hundred years of prohibition, this resolution was a welcome respite. It is an unintended vote of no confidence in the very system the UN drugs commission oversees, or at the very least, a note of caution about bringing more substances within it.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1278797 2012-02-15T09:53:49-05:00 2012-04-16T05:12:01-04:00

Damon Barrett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/damon-barett/ Hamza Kashgari, a journalist wanted by Saudi Arabia for insulting the Prophet Mohamed on Twitter. The arrest reportedly came after Interpol issued a 'Red Notice' on the request of Saudi Arabia (an 'international alert allowing police in member countries to share critical crime-related information'). Kashgari has since been returned to the country where he faces the death penalty.

Interpol denied involvement, a spokesperson stating said: 'The assertion that Saudi Arabia used Interpol's system in this case is wholly misleading and erroneous.'

That may be true but the Kashgari case serves as a window into a far bigger legal and moral problem for Interpol.

According to the agency, 'In the case of Red Notices, the persons concerned are wanted by national jurisdictions and the notices requested are based on an arrest warrant or court decision. Interpol's role is to assist the national police forces in identifying and locating these persons with a view to their arrest and extradition'

6,344 Red Notices were issued in 2010.

But Interpol cannot do this in a legal or moral vacuum. According to its own constitution, its foundational legal document, one of Interpol's aims is 'To ensure and promote the widest possible mutual assistance between all criminal police authorities within the limits of the laws existing in the different countries and in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights'.

Article 3 of the constitution is Interpol's neutrality clause, barring action in religious cases, so a case like that of Kashgari would be clear cut. Interpol should not act. But what about actual crimes that carry the death penalty in many countries in contravention of international law, such as economic crimes and drug offences? What is Interpol's position on assisting the capture and extradition of people who will face death for such crimes?

Searching current Red Notices on Interpol's website, 13 have been issued for people wanted in China for corruption, for example, which can carry a death sentence (among other economic crimes).

On a larger scale, up to a thousand people are likely put to death every year for drug offences. There are 160 Red Notices issued for 'drugs', with people wanted by Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, China, Viet Nam, Iran and other states that retain the death penalty for drug offences.

There are eight notices for people wanted by Saudi Arabia for drug offences. Since 2007, Saudia Arabia has executed at least 65 people for drugs. China and Viet Nam are secretive about their executions, but both are known to be prolific.

Aside from international notices there is training, capacity building and operations. One of the agency's most prominent current drugs programmes is 'Operation Ice Trail', intended to 'target organized crime groups trafficking huge quantities of methamphetamine by courier and/or cargo shipment from Iran via Turkey to destination countries in Southeast Asia and the Pacific'. In other words, drugs originating in a death penalty state and destined for a region replete with them.

Iran executed around 590 people for drugs in 2010, and well over 10,000 since 1979. In January, Interpol hosted the third operational working group meeting on Operation Ice Trail in Tehran, attended by police forces from eleven countries.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) was also represented, and it is an agency that has recently also been criticised for assisting death penalty states in capturing drug suspects. UNODC assistance to Iran, China and elsewhere has led to prosecutions and executions. Such programmes are ongoing despite concerns being raised by human rights groups.

The two agencies are strikingly similar. Both are international agencies involved heavily in drug enforcement. Both work with countries with extremely poor human rights records. Both have human rights as core values, at least on paper.

The answers are also similar. Both need clear, developed, and published human rights frameworks to guide their actions. They need transparent systems of human rights risk and impact assessment to implement those guidelines and against which they can be held to account. This applies to technical assistance, capacity building, material assistance, and, of course, if and when Interpol issues Red Notices.

Recently, for example, the Thai Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubumrung has announced plans to cut appeal processes for those on death row for drug offences in Thailand, aiming to expedite executions. There are over 300 people on death row for drugs in Thailand, including almost seventy women and a lot of foreign nationals, meaning that Mr Chalerm is proposing a lot of killing in the near future, it seems.

How should this affect Interpol's decision making?

As a first step, clear, public, red lines for when assistance cannot be provided must be developed by both agencies. Syria is an Interpol member. Would Interpol now issue a Red Notice on request from the Assad regime, for any crime?

The answer to that should be clearer than it is.

Interpol may not have been involved in Hamza Kashgari's capture. But the process of Red Notices for warrants that may result in executions raises a range of questions that must be answered by Interpol, as well as other international drug enforcement agencies such as UNODC and their donors (especially those that have abolished the death penalty).

We cannot have international policing without human rights oversight.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1133476 2011-12-07T08:09:05-05:00 2012-02-06T05:12:02-05:00

Damon Barrett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/damon-barett/
'Operation Audacious' was a success, according to the Greater Manchester Police and others. A success in that arrests have been made, public calls for action on street dealers have been heard and acted upon, and in that a clear message has been sent.

But two important questions arise: Are these really measures of success in relation to drugs? And what about tomorrow?

As far as local communities are concerned, a substantial number of street dealers, possibly really nasty people that have been causing serious problems in their areas, have been arrested. There is no problem with that, and locals will surely see this as a success.

The police, for their part, are there to enforce the law, so as far as Greater Manchester Police are concerned, and based on their own targets, yesterday certainly was a success.

But let us be clear, neither of these has any bearing on drug use, dependence and related health harms.

This is more than a little worrying, because these concerns are the reason we have criminal laws relating to drugs. They are the reason there is a criminal drug market there to be populated by dealers and to cause genuine concern to communities. They are the justification for yesterday's raids. According to Chief Superintendent Russ Jackson, Divisional Commander for North Manchester "Cracking down on drugs in our communities is a big priority for GMP and I hope today shows the people of Manchester just how seriously we are committed to this cause...we are determined to root out all those involved in this trade, from the addicts to the sellers to those who are bringing the drugs in".

So if law enforcement is not having an impact on drug use, dependence and social and health harms, then what is drug law enforcement for? And where does it sit in relation to broader drug policy priorities?

And so we come to the second question - what about tomorrow? How many more large scale operations, dawn raids, arrests, prosecutions with so little to show for it?

75 people were arrested yesterday, forty-four charged. According to the Greater Manchester Police, "£2k worth of class A drugs, 15 blocks of cannabis, 20 bags of cannabis, a cannabis farm, stolen jewellery and a batch of stolen meat" were seized.

Two thousand pounds worth of Class A drugs is a small amount. The rest is cannabis, which, aside from the criminal market surrounding it is one of the less harmful of currently illicit drugs. It is a small vacuum, which, in the absence of any reduction in demand, of which there is none, will be filled very quickly indeed. The next entrepreneurs in the queue will fill any temporary void left by those charged.

Asking if operations like 'Audacious' are winning the long game isn't to single out any one operation or police force. It's one of many such crackdowns, including one in London last month attended by Boris Johnson.

But neither is it an unreasonable policy question. After all, the raids have taken months of planning, and involved specialist tactical officers, mounted and canine units, divisional and neighbourhood officers, firearms teams and drug workers in case any of those arrested have drug dependence problems. Add to all this, the Crown Prosecution Service to advise on charging. Seventy-two people have been arrested. Processing those arrested will further add to the cost, and we are all well aware of the expense of running those that have been charged through the criminal justice system and housing those that receive a custodial sentence.

This is a massive undertaking in terms of human and financial resources. So what would a cost-benefit analysis of this operation and the laws and policies that underpin it conclude?

Local communities may feel safer. Forty four people have been charged and potentially taken off the streets for a while. This is part of the equation, and an important one. But we have to ask what this operation is for, or premised upon. This was a drug raid, and arrests don't reflect success in drug policies. They're a measure of effort.

Operation Audacious is representative of the positive feedback loop we've gotten ourselves into where fighting the drug trade is success enough. It is an expensive and circular dynamic which can lead nowhere long term.

By all means let's seek out, arrest and prosecute those causing harm to our communities. By all means answer pleas from locals to deal with violent criminals. But when it comes to success in drug control we need an evaluation of operations like Audacious and drug law enforcement generally using indicators that get to the root of why we enforce drug laws in the first place.

Operation Audacious is one of many raids we all paid for, so let's have answers. We need to count the costs. After all, tomorrow will come soon enough.
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Damon Barrett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/damon-barett/
This year we will hear that the first AIDS free generation since the discovery of HIV may be a reality. But we are unlikely to hear what counts. As with every year, we are left more questions than answers.

To the richest nations: Where is the money you pledged?

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS Tuberculosis and Malaria has been eviscerated. With the world's richest nations reneging on their pledges made time and again to make sure the Global Fund was adequately financed, the budget of the organisation has been halved, meaning that there will be no new grants until 2014.

This is a catastrophe that will cost many, many lives. No politician from a donor state that has so betrayed the most vulnerable, the poorest and most marginalised, can stand in front of the cameras this World AIDS Day and say anything unless it is an explanation for this.

To PEPFAR: When will you begin spending on HIV-related harm reduction?

Harm Reduction International carried out a study in 2009 on funding for the basics of HIV-related harm reduction in low and middle income countries. We estimated that funding had to scale up approximately twenty fold to a paltry $3 billion annually to meet need. At that time the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) had not spent a single penny on needle and syringe programmes. This was due to a previous ban on such funding, which President Obama's administration lifted. In 2011 still not a single needle has been purchased by PEPFAR. Why not? And who answers for this? No strategy to fight HIV is complete unless it addresses all routes of transmission. Unless services for people who inject drugs are adequately resourced, there can be no AIDS free generation.

To governments all over the world: Why do you persist in criminalising those most at risk?

We know and have known for too long that no-one can criminalise their way out of a public health problem. There can be no better example of this than HIV related to unsafe injecting practices. We know that criminalising drug use and possession, criminalising carrying paraphernalia such as needles and syringes, focusing efforts on law enforcement over public health, and filling prisons with people who use drugs fuels HIV epidemics while squandering the limited funds available. Meanwhile we know that in the decades that drug use and possession have been crimes there has been no reduction in prevalence of drug use, and only an upsurge in drug related harms. Almost every country in the world is complicit in this state of affairs that so damages HIV prevention efforts.

To the Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime: Where is your public commitment to harm reduction?

Mr Fedotov, you are in charge of the lead agency within UNAIDS for HIV related to injecting drug use. In 2010 you took office with a pledge to focus on health and human rights. Since then the words 'harm reduction' have not emerged in any of your speeches or in official statements from your office, despite harm reduction being a proven public health intervention and a recognised aspect of the right to health. HIV prevention has dropped significantly in prominence from the public output of the UNODC. Instead you share high level platforms with the Russian government, but fail to criticise its rejection of the very policies your office is supposed to lead the UNAIDS family in promoting, and from which about a third of the entire budget of your office is derived. Are your HIV donors satisfied with your performance?

To the Russian government: How can you so neglect your own people?

As networks of people who use drugs gather at Russian embassies in eight countries today we ask the Russian government: how can you continue to neglect some of the most vulnerable and at risk people in your nation? How can you ban opioid substitution therapy until 2020 when its is so well supported by scientific studies as an effective HIV prevention measure, when krokodil is tearing its way through people's lives, and when 30,000 people a year die from overdose? How can you fail to fund needle and syringe programmes when your country is currently the global cautionary tale for HIV prevention, experiencing the worst epidemic in the region? Russia is not alone in failing to adequately scale up harm reduction. But it is by far the worst case.

It need not be this way. We need not have next to no money for the AIDS response. We need not have criminal laws that get so fundamentally in the way of what is needed and what is right. We need not have leaders who refuse to even say the right thing. We need not have governments adopting policies that kill their own. But today we will get speeches and pledges, and nothing of what matters.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1107244 2011-11-22T07:59:54-05:00 2012-01-22T05:12:01-05:00

Damon Barrett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/damon-barett/ interview this week with London's Metro, President Santos of Colombia said "every time somebody in London sniffs coke he destroys the environment here in the tropical forests...and probably kills a couple of people"

There are two solutions to this. One of them has a chance.

Santos' view is widely shared. It was the basis of a joint campaign by the former Colombian vice-presidency and the UN, which came to Trafalgar Square in 2008. It was attended by Alex James. Jonathan Dimbleby said something very similar a few weeks ago, expressing his "contempt for cocaine sniffers in this country who ... do not realise that they are fuelling a drugs war".

George Monbiot wrote an article on this very point in the Guardian in 2009, in which he said "I know people who drink fair-trade tea and coffee, shop locally and take cocaine at parties. They are revolting hypocrites."

There is a lot that is wrong with these views. But they are not completely wrong.

Monbiot touches on a central issue in his contribution: "the counter-cultural association appears to insulate people from ethical questions".

This is an important point. But it is not just the counter-cultural association, but the fact that most people know that the main issue here is drug policies.

The issue is one of the locus of ethical responsibility, and the seeming ability of some who use cocaine, and let's face it, pretty much all policy makers, to pass the buck onto someone or something else.

Is demand for cocaine here in the UK and elsewhere contributing to violence and environmental damage in Colombia? Yes. It is nonsensical to deny this. We are all responsible for our own actions. That prohibition makes things vastly worse says nothing about a personal choice made in the knowledge of the damage the drug trade inflicts today. It's just not enough to say the market should not be so violent. It is, so we must make our decisions accordingly and live with them.

It is also true that one person's choice will have little impact on global demand. But this is obviously not an acceptable ethical response.

I work on human rights and drug policies so I am not aiming to stigmatise people who use drugs or are dependent on them here. Lord knows that has caused too much harm already (Google 'drug detention centre'). I campaign against human rights abuses against people who choose to use them or related to drug law enforcement. I also do not view drug use as a moral wrong. But given the damage the cocaine trade wreaks, and that of some other drugs, the ethical thing to do, as a recreational user, is surely to forego.

For many others this is not so simple and arguments about how one came to choose to use certain drugs in the first place deflect from real harm in their own lives - it's why we work for better harm reduction and treatment in the first place.

But the issue of personal ethical choice, while something for all of us to grapple with continually, is marginal to the bigger picture in drug policy. Passing the buck goes both ways. Far more damaging is the flip-side of this discussion, where governments, policy-makers, and law enforcement put all the blame on consumers to deflect attention from the harms drug policies have wrought on those same countries and communities in whose names they claim to speak; and from their own moral culpability.

The blatant fallacy in placing the blame on consumers is that ending all cocaine use one person at a time is a feasible solution to the violence and conflict associated with the trade. It's just another iteration of the fanciful 'drug free world'.

By this argument discussion of realistic and pragmatic policies that intervene in a transaction between producer, trader and user that need not be so harmful, are side-stepped, and debates about how to better reduce drug related harms here in the UK are frozen. It's a political dodge of the key issues, and they know it.

It boils down to this. There are two solutions to Santos' statement. One is that all people stop using cocaine. The other is that governments intervene and change the nature of the trade.

One of these has a chance. Monbiot spotted it. So did Dimbleby. Interestingly, Santos seems willing to consider it.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.996314 2011-10-05T12:48:42-04:00 2011-12-05T05:12:01-05:00

Damon Barrett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/damon-barett/ issued a ruling ordering the Government to permit 'Insite', Canada's only safe injection facility, to remain open. Insite is a place where people can inject drugs they've bought on the street with sterile equipment and under medical supervision. The site has proven to reduce crime, overdose deaths and blood borne viruses, and has helped people access treatment when they were ready. The Court found that the Minister of Health had violated Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms in not allowing the project to remain open, and ordered the Minister to remedy the situation. The ruling was simple - Insite saves lives and does no harm to public health or security. Insite workers were in tears, and drug policy advocates around the world cheered. It had been a long struggle with the Harper administration dragging this small harm reduction programme through three courts.

In March next year the United Nations will likely condemn the decision. The condemnation will come from the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) in its annual report launched each March. The INCB's job is to oversee the implementation of the three main UN drugs treaties and is of the view that that Insite's existence violates those treaties. It does not.

Another UN office, in this case that of the Special Rapporteur on the right to health (Anand Grover from India), will do doubt welcome the Canadian decision. In a recent report submitted to UN member states at the UN General Assembly, Mr Grover called for the roll-out of harm reduction services including safe injection facilities in order to help realise the right to the highest attainable standard of health of people who inject drugs (alongside many other interventions, of course). So not only do safe injection facilities not violate international laws, they may be protected by them.

The INCB, however, issued a defensive public response to Grover's report. This is a rarity in the UN system, which prizes 'system coherence' and unity. A suggestion to reform the drug control system was enough to pierce that veil. And it was not just the INCB, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), part of the UN Secretariat and headed by the UN drug tsar, co-signed the response.

Since taking up the post only a year ago, the head of the UNODC, Yury Fedotov, has visited many countries, making public statements about national drug control strategies. In Iran he lauded the Government's 'robust' policies and failed to mention the killing spree Iran has been on in recent years. In New York he met with Thai officials and, according to those officials, supported the Government's re-launch of the 'war on drugs', without criticising plans to round up tens of thousands drug users and forcibly 'treat' them (read: detain without trial, a basic violation of human rights law). In Colombia he praised the Government's counter-narcotics efforts without raising concerns about the aerial fumigation of coca, whether in terms of health damage, environmental damage or human displacement. In Mexico he praised the Government's efforts in countering the cartels and failed to mention the violence the authorities have sparked, the 1,000 children dead, or the almost 1000% increase in complaints to human rights commissions in the country since 2006.

In each of these cases UN human rights monitors have raised serious concerns.

In a rather chilling passage from a report released in March this year the INCB referred to Mexico's 'tremendous efforts' in fighting the drug trade, while noting without comment the 28,000 people dead (at the time) in the country's war on drugs since 2006. Elsewhere in the same report the Board praised Singapore's anti-drug law which includes caning and the death penalty; the approach of the Maldives which includes heavy criminal penalties for drug use and corporal punishment; and Russia's news strategy which bans opioid substitution therapy, a core HIV prevention measure, until 2020.

In each case, UN human rights monitors have raised serious concerns.

Meanwhile the INCB has initiated a crusade against Bolivia in its attempts to reconcile its human rights and drug control obligations. Bolivia has sought to amend its obligations under a core UN drugs treaty in order to allow for cultural and traditional uses of coca by indigenous Andean groups. The INCB has condemned this publicly and has raised it as a concern to member states at the Economic and Social Council of the UN (ECOSOC).

The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (which reports to ECOSOC) and other UN human rights mechanisms support the move.

Unfortunately this is more than just internal squabbling in the UN. These are not individuals, but entities, and more than that again, these are regimes: drug control and human rights. What the INCB and UNODC are doing is not only entrenching punitive and abusive approaches to drugs - they are undermining the already weak UN human rights system, while allowing those responsible for abusive and in some cases illegal policies the ability to hold their heads high and say 'Look, the UN says we're doing a great job'.

The Insite case is a huge win for reason, public health and compassion in Canada. It is a win for human rights. And it exposes not only tensions in Canada but within the international system when it comes to drug control, health and human rights. When the UN condemns the decision as it will in March next year, just remember who's speaking, get the salt out, and take a pinch.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.948051 2011-09-03T18:59:52-04:00 2011-11-03T05:12:01-04:00

Damon Barrett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/damon-barett/
Launching the US war on drugs in 1971 President Nixon talked about addiction coming quietly into homes and destroying children. Mexican authorities continue to justify a costly military assault on drug cartels in the name of children. International agreements on drugs that entrench the prohibitionist regime and provide it with the gravitas of the United Nations refer to children as our future, 'our most precious asset.' Drugs and the drug trade are posited in these documents and speeches as an existential threat to us, through our children.

Let's be clear - drugs and the drug trade now pose significant threats to children. And protecting them from these threats should be our goal. But whether the policies of the past few decades have in fact achieved that goal, have the potential to do so, or are making matters steadily worse, are entirely different questions.

In 2009, I was part of a delegation visiting Colombia's Guaviare province to better understand the effects of aerial fumigation of coca. We visited a home run by a priest who provides shelter to children displaced by fumigation and drug-fuelled conflict. Removed from their families, many had witnessed appalling violence, or had hidden in fear of military gunships escorting airplanes spraying unknown chemicals on their villages, or had watched their parents weep for their destroyed livelihoods.

These were the children of the drug war. Or at least some of them. Like most, however, their stories have rarely come to the fore, remaining hidden behind top line statistics about kilos seized, hectares eradicated, prosecutions secured, and how many people aged 15-65 have used a drug in the last year. To a considerable extent the situation in Mexico has changed that, as the short brutality of the lives many children are now facing becomes clearer, as the death toll of parents and children racks up, and as schools become targets of violence and intimidation. This cannot escape public attention.

But the stories of many of the children affected by drug policies in myriad ways continue to go untold.

Take Mario, for example. At twenty he is the eldest son and supported his family income by driving a motorcycle taxi in Jakarta, Indonesia. Following his arrest for possessing a small amount of drugs he was imprisoned for eighteen months. He is in a grossly overcrowded prison, far from home. His parents struggle to get by as they spend almost their entire household income visiting and protecting him.

Or Michael, eight years old, from Kisumu in Kenya. He was orphaned by AIDS and lives with his elderly aunt. He has sickle cell anaemia, a life-limiting blood disorder characterised by episodes of severe pain. Michael is suffering because access to morphine in Kenya is so poor. There are many factors contributing to this, but one of them is an international drug control system and national laws, including in Kenya, that prioritise fighting drugs over providing essential medicines. As one palliative care expert told me "We need to set our priorities straight".

What about the girls, bartered to drug lords in Afghanistan to pay opium debts? Their families are already poor, surviving hand to mouth on small opium farms. They are at the mercy of drought, isolation and credit. When their crops are eradicated in an effort to control heroin production, their choices are stark - sell a child or the family starves.

And then there is LaCoste - a white, rich, teenage drug dealer in a US college campus. Someone for whom the drug war is of no consequence, but a child of the drug war nonetheless. His is a case of the privileges of race and class and speaks volumes to the criminalisation of America's black and Latino youth. The fact is that most of us are children of the drug war. Certainly for those of us born in the last fifty years, we have grown up in the midst of a political and increasingly punitive and militarised enterprise. But our experiences of it, and those of today's young people, are hardly uniform.

In this midst of this there are those children and young people who use drugs and are falling victim to health harms - those things from which they were supposed to have been protected. In many countries, where we have data, their numbers are increasing.

There is a book called Exterminate All the Brutes by Sven Lindqvist which begins and ends with the same plea - "You already know enough. So do I. It is not knowledge we lack. What is missing is the courage to understand what we know and to draw conclusions" If drug policies are to be justified with reference to children and young people, then those policies must be interrogated with reference to them. We know enough to do this. Evaluation is a standard process. But which politicians have the moral courage to call for it?


Children of the Drug War: Perspectives on the impact of drug policies on young people (IDEA, iDebate Press, 2011) is available for free download on a creative commons licence at www.childrenofthedrugwar.org
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