This UN summit could finally end the war on drugs
UN drug agencies are increasingly isolated even within the UN system
Vice (UK)
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Next month, the 193 member states of the United Nations will meet to talk about drugs. The last time this happened, in 1998, the summit ended with a distinctly utopian ambition: the total eradication of all drugs from the entire world. "A drug-free world—we can do it!" the summit declared. Eighteen years later, narcotics are still as popular as ever, with the UN estimating that the global number of illicit drug users will increase 25 percent by 2050. At the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS), which starts on April 19, a range of NGOs and campaign groups will be lobbying policy-makers about the merits of the alternatives to prohibition.
