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Dispatches: Good News on US Drug Policy – Within the US and Globally

The last few weeks have brought a wave of good news for proponents of drug policy reform in the United States. In elections last week, the states of Oregon and Alaska voted to legalize marijuana within their borders, joining Colorado and Washington. In the District of Columbia, voters approved the decriminalization of personal use and possession of certain amounts of marijuana. Californians okayed a measure cutting the time some offenders spend behind bars for common drug crimes in the state. And in New York City, police are poised to stop arresting people for possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Much less noticed in the US media, but potentially highly consequential, were the statements about global drug policy made by Ambassador Bill Brownfield, US assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement, at an October 9 United Nations press conference. In a surprising move away from long-standing US advocacy for harsh global drug policies, Brownfield called for a “flexible interpretation” of UN International Narcotics Conventions, which some UN agencies and several governments have in the past interpreted strictly to require the imposition of stiff criminal penalties for drug offenses. He also made a case for “tolerating” countries’ different strategies towards drug control, rather than insisting on a one-size-fits-all emphasis on criminalization, and said countries should keep their eyes on the ball of combating international organized crime. His statement mirrors language in a 2013 US Department of Justice memorandum, which noted that robust state-level regulation (implicitly referring to Washington and Colorado’s legalization of marijuana) might actually assist in fighting organized crime, by substituting legal markets for the illicit ones that often fuel criminal activity.

Brownfield’s statements come at a critical time, as the UN is now gearing up for a potentially ground-breaking special session of its general assembly that will focus on global drug control policy. A shift is long overdue. As we have documented in country after country, existing strategies have resulted in a human rights nightmare, by driving up the profitability of illicit drug markets that fuel criminal groups that commit atrocities, corrupt authorities, and undermine democratic institutions. In the US, harsh drug enforcement and excessive sentences have contributed to massive over-incarceration and arrests – often merely for using drugs – which carry lifelong consequences and disproportionately affect African Americans.

Today, Human Rights Watch and other members of the Count the Costs initiative are speaking at the United Nations and later at the New York offices of Open Society Foundations to call for a new approach to drug policy, one that recognizes states’ legitimate interests in preventing societal harms flowing from drug abuse, while at the same time addressing the serious human rights costs of current approaches. It’s time for drug policy reform, both in the US and around the world.

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