Full Description
This book describes the events, activities and negotiations leading up to the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session on international drug policy. A range of respected authors from International institutions, academia and civil society organisations detail the background to the negotiations and the outcome; and possible future scenarios for continued reform and change at the High Level Review in 2019. The chapters include consideration of the positions taken by blocs and nation-states at all points on the prohibition - reform continuum. Topics covered include discussions on the importance of human rights, access to essential medicines and the role played by cannabis in revealing the contradictions and divisions in both national and international contexts. The break-down of the previous international consensus on 'the world drug problem' is clearly described and analysed, as is the slow progress being made to the adoption of a human rights and health-based approach to currently illegal drugs. Consideration is also given to the nations and arguments which continue to defend prohibition and its repressive impacts on national populations, and the prioritising of geo-politics over population health this represents in practice. There are lessons and examples here for international politics and national policy reform.
Contents
Foreword; Michel Kazatchkine Introduction; Axel Klein and Blaine Stothard
Chapter 1. The 2016 UNGASS on Drugs: A Catalyst for the Drug Policy Reform Movement; Ann Fordham Fordham and Heather Haase
Chapter 2. The Death Penalty for Drug Offences: Pulling Back the Curtain to Expose a Flawed Regime; Gen Sander and Rick Lines
Chapter 3. Measuring the 'World Drug Problem': 2019 and Beyond; David R. Bewley-Taylor and Marie Nougier
Chapter 4. Improving Access to Internationally Controlled Essential Medicines in the Post-UNGASS, Agenda 2030 Framework; Katherine Irene Pettus
Chapter 5. The Elephant in the Room: Cannabis in the International Drug Control Regime; Tom Blickman
Chapter 6. Drug Policy in the Russian Federation: Do Control Policies Produce More Harm Than Drugs?; Mikhail Golichenko, Anya Sarang, Khalid Tinasti and Isabela Barbosa
Chapter 7. Consensus and Contradictions in ASEAN: An Analysis of Southeast Asia at and After UNGASS 2016; Ricky Gunawan and Gloria Lai
Chapter 8. Deconstructing the Islamic Bloc: The Middle East and North Africa and Pluralistic Drugs Policy; Maziyar Ghiabi
Chapter 9. Breaking Ranks: Pioneering Drug Policy Protagonism in Uruguay and Bolivia; Jonas von Hoffmann
Chapter 10. The Netherlands, Portugal and the Czech Republic: Political Perceptions and Legal Realities; Danilo Ballotta and Brendan Hughes
Chapter 11. The European Union in Panglossian Stagnation; Caroline Chatwin
Chapter 12. United States Drug Policy: Flexible Prohibition and Regulation; Zara Snapp and Jorge Herrera Valderrábano
Chapter 13. West Africa; Leandre Banon and Maria-Goretti Loglo
Chapter 14. Switzerland: Moving Towards Public Health and Harm Reduction; Frank Zobel and Larissa J. Maier
Chapter 15. Epilogue; Mike Trace
