Drug Policies Should Be Based on Public Health and Human Rights, Panelists Say

Policy must shift away from the punitive approach of the ‘war on drugs’ to treating drug use as a public health issue, according to prominent panelists at the first in a series of debates hosted by CEU’s School of Public Policy in collaboration with the Open Society Foundations’ Global Drug Policy Program.

“The war on drugs has created additional problems that are very severe and have done a great deal of harm,” said CEU Founder and Honorary Chairman George Soros, who opened the session, entitled Drugs: It’s About Health, Not Policing. “Treating it as a public health problem is preferable to the war on drugs.”

The war on drugs is, in fact, a failure, the panelists concluded. Drug use is still on the rise; too many people are incarcerated or even tortured for minor offenses, and HIV infection rates are still rising among drug users in many countries. “We know that the epidemic can be prevented, with harm reduction,” said Dr. Michel Kazatchkine, member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy and U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. “Harm reduction is a set of interventions: providing free needles and syringes, substitute therapy, informing people, involving people in the decision-making process. I can’t understand how people ignore this evidence.”

In Europe, the current tense economic climate makes it difficult to introduce a sensitive debate on drug policy. It worked in Switzerland and Portugal via a progressive change in society, a democratic process. In Russia, the situation is not only unsuitable, but hostile, according to Kazatchkine.

“Russia is a country where you cannot democratically challenge what the powers say, even with evidence,” Kazatchkine said. He urged patience and persistence, with constant provision of concrete evidence that harm reduction offers a more promising route.

The discussion was moderated by Balazs Denes, executive director of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union.