Entitled The World Drug Problem: Taking Stock and Strengthening the Global Response, this Parliamentary Hearing at the United Nations will contribute to a Special Session of the General Assembly on the world drug problem which will take place later in the season (19-20 April).
The Hearing will provide an opportunity for an evidence-based reflection on the ways the global community is addressing this complex problem in its many aspects - offering treatment and care to drug users, prosecuting drug offenders, fighting drug production and trafficking, regulating the medical use of opiates. The underlying question of the Hearing is whether the so-called “war on drugs”, which relies on a law-enforcement solution to the problem of illicit drugs, has worked as intended. A related question is whether new, people-centred Sustainable Development Goals that governments adopted in September 2015 require a re-think of drug control policies.
These questions will be discussed in the light of the international conventions on drugs as well as the commitments governments made in a milestone Political Declaration and Plan of Action adopted in 2009. |
