OBAMA'S CHOICE

Sane U.N. Drug Policy or the Same Old Failed War-on-Drugs Routine?

Everyone knows that Barack Obama became the 44th president of the
United States last Tuesday, Jan. 20. As an advocate for sound, sane
drug policy and HIV prevention, I hope that his inauguration will
mark a change to an administration that chooses science over dogma.

By contrast, practically no one knows about the Commission on
Narcotic Drugs meeting that will take place in Vienna, Austria, six
weeks from now, March 12-13. This meeting of United Nations member
states will review the results of the 1998 U.N. General Assembly
Special Session on drugs that set the framework for the last decade's
international drug policy. They will then release a political
declaration that will set the framework for the next decade -- and,
by implication, the course for the global response to the HIV
epidemic as it affects drug users.

It is imperative that the new Obama administration act quickly to
ensure that the U.S. delegation to this upcoming UNGASS review
reflect Obama's publicly stated position that he, per the official
White House site, "supports lifting the federal ban on needle
exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of [HIV] infection
among drug users."

Otherwise, our new president will miss a vital early opportunity to
lead us back into an era of evidence-based policy.

Our current U.S. delegation is primarily made up of State Department
bureaucrats soldiering in the war on drugs. They promote policies
that have had dramatic negative consequences (intended and
unintended) on the lives of drug users, their families and their
communities but very little impact on reducing drug supply,
consumption or cultivation.

By making drug use as dangerous as possible, the United States has
facilitated the spread of HIV and viral hepatitis, has allowed death
from overdose to remain unchecked and has created a prison system
unlike anything since the Soviet gulags. At the same time, U.S.
commitment to providing effective drug treatment on demand is
virtually nonexistent. Moreover, in critical negotiations in
international settings, Team USA is rabidly hostile toward harm
reduction and syringe exchange at a time when Australia, Canada, Iran
and most European Union countries embrace them as important drug policy tools.

The UNGASS review presents an opportunity for the Obama
administration not only to lose these Bush-era ideologues, but also
to join with other nations to create a genuinely balanced and useful
blueprint for international drug policy.

We should follow the example of other U.N. member states, including
some countries in the Caribbean as well as the U.K., and the
Netherlands, and expand the U.S. contingent to include members of
civil society -- people with a distinct viewpoint who can engage in
the proceedings and represent the views of drug users.

After all, countries around the world, including the United States,
have long understood the importance of including people living with
HIV/AIDS at U.N. meetings. Yet, when it comes to making U.N. drug
policy, the current U.S. framework renders the most affected
community, individuals who use drugs, silent. It will be easier to
design effective solutions with input from all affected parties.

In July 2008, over 300 representatives from civil society came
together under the auspices of the United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime to provide input into the UNGASS review at a meeting called
Beyond 2008. The resulting declaration was designed to partially
mirror that being produced by the formal government review process.
This consensus-based document, while imperfect, directs governments
to address global drug problems in a proportional fashion and redress
the imbalance caused by focusing on the supply side of drug policy.

(Try getting consensus in a group that includes the Drug Free America
Foundation, National Narcotics Officers' Associations' Coalition,
Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and the American Civil Liberties
Union! And that's just part of the U.S. contingent.)

The only government that was arrogant enough to meddle in the
formative process was (surprise) the United States. But despite all
that preparation -- and three days of meetings -- the Beyond 2008
Declaration is destined to be sidelined at the UNGASS review meeting,
as there is no clear indication from the Commission on Narcotic Drugs
that the views of civil society will be included in the March meeting.

Who benefits from keeping the voice of civil society out of the
UNGASS review process? The United States and Russia, primarily, as
they both maintain positions that civil society opposes. The United
States wants to keep syringe exchange and harm reduction off of the
agenda; the Russians want to continue to demonize methadone.

In a letter co-sponsored with our allies at Physicians for Human
Rights and co-signed by more than 60 public health and human rights
organizations, the Harm Reduction Coalition has asked the Obama
administration to immediately appoint a more progressive U.S.
delegation to the UNGASS review process -- one that reflects the
president's stance on syringe exchange and puts civil society at the
table where it belongs.

The time has come to return to drug policy based on best medical
practices, to recognize the human rights of drug users and to produce
a political declaration that will shift the focus of international
drug policy toward a public-health-based approach that will aid
rather than hurt drug users.