Drug policy in India: Key developments since the UNGASS 2016
February 2019
This paper outlines the key drug policy developments in India since the UNGASS Outcome Document was adopted in 2016, which highlights health and human rights concerns in relation to both drugs and drug policies. In March 2019, member states are expected to take stock of commitments made in the 2009 United Nations Political Declaration and Plan of Action on ‘International cooperation towards an integrated and balanced strategy to counter the world drug problem’ at the ministerial segment of the 62nd Session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND). It represents an important opportunity to review progress to date and to set meaningful goals for future drug policy.
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Although no comprehensive review has yet been undertaken by the CND, IDPC has conducted assessments of progress over the past decade both at the global level and at the regional level in Asia. Following the ‘Drug Policy in India’ briefing paper by IDPC in 2015, this paper outlines the key drug policy developments in India since the UNGASS Outcome Document was adopted in 2016, which highlights health and human rights concerns in relation to both drugs and drug policies.
These concerns include the themes of availability and access to controlled medicines, evidence-based treatment for drug dependence, measures to minimise “the adverse health and social consequences” of drug use including overdose deaths and transmission of HIV, viral hepatitis and other blood-borne diseases, interventions to address the specific needs of children and youth, and proportionate responses in the criminal justice system.
Conclusions
1. Although the overall drug policy environment in India remains the same, there have been some potentially positive changes in legislation not directly associated with drug control, such as the Mental Health and HIV laws. Their implementation needs to be monitored to evaluate their impacts and the extent to which they are effective in meeting their objective of increasing access to necessary healthcare, and ensuring access to HIV prevention, treatment and care for people who use and people who are dependent on drugs.
2. There have been policy changes that pose greater challenges to access to drug dependence treatment, including through the criminalisation of doctors providing OST services, closure of opium registries, harsher punishment for young people under the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, and imposition of disproportionate penalties under the framework for quantity-based sentencing. Conversations about the ineffectiveness of criminalisation and punishment in addressing the harms associated with drug use, as well as the need for proven harm reduction interventions and drug treatment programmes that are based on scientific evidence and human rights are few and far between.
3. The policy changes taking shape at state-level show that the Central Government is no longer the exclusive site for advocacy and reform. In addition, courts have shown that they can play an important role in transforming laws and policies. However, prohibitionist and drugfree objectives remain dominant policy goals, and it remains to be questioned the extent to which the judiciary should be directing drug policy or directing measures such as ‘drug-free clubs’ and ‘surveillance of drug suspects’, that are outside the law
4. The Central Government’s rejection of the death penalty for first-time offenders is a positive step towards a human rights approach to drug policy. However, it must be followed up with considerations for abolishing the death penalty entirely.
