Last week, like every year for almost seven decades, the session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) took place at the UN headquarters in Vienna. In this space, representatives of 53 member states meet to examine and adopt a series of decisions and resolutions that mark global drug policy. The CND is characterized by the well-known “Vienna consensus”: the member countries have been agreeing on resolutions by consensus all this time. A way of operating that not only slows down changes in this matter, but also prevents an effective response to new challenges and has allowed certain countries to block or veto resolutions, terms or approaches considered reformist.
This year, in addition to the regular session, a high-level ministerial segment was held to review, mid-term, the progress of the commitments made in the 2019 Ministerial Declaration. As expected, this review was not exhaustive , detailed or critical. Despite acknowledging that the “world drug problem” continues and that drug markets are expanding, diversifying and intensifying, no major changes were announced on the way forward. In short, the hamster continues running inside its wheel.
But this 2024 has seen four milestones that, put together, mark a possible crack in the consensus on the war on drugs through this session at the CND.
The first came with the presence and intervention of Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, during that initial high-level meeting. Blinken focused his intervention on synthetic drugs, combining the conservative tone characteristic of this space with indications of a perspective more receptive to change. On the one hand, it requested greater control of chemical precursors that are used illicitly to produce synthetic drugs and announced an investment of approximately 170 million dollars to combat the threats of synthetic drugs around the world, positioning them as the new enemy. to fight. Something that suggests that a new version of the war on drugs is underway in the American continent.
On the other hand, he mentioned that, for the first time, his country is prioritizing demand reduction over supply, and urged greater efforts to reduce overdose deaths, noting that there is growing evidence on how harm reduction, treatment and prevention can save lives. Furthermore, revealing the possible true reason for his presence, he asked the countries present to support the adoption of a US-sponsored resolution promoting these measures. That is, there is more co-responsibility and an effort to address drug consumption from public health approaches.
The second moment came with another figure: Volker Türk. For the first time, a United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is present at this venue. Something striking, given that drug policies and human rights are intrinsically related. However, there is a marked division between these two areas, represented respectively by the UN headquarters in Geneva and Vienna. Year after year, for example, the Vienna-based United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) publishes its annual report, which tends to overlook the negative effects of punitive, repressive and stigmatizing drug policies implemented in several countries, including imposition of the death penalty, arbitrary detentions, extrajudicial killings and the increase in prison populations, as a method to achieve a “drug-free world.”
So, the presence and intervention of the High Commissioner, calling for a transformative approach to drug policies, is a milestone. However, he also raises the question of how to capitalize on this moment to ensure that Geneva, as well as other United Nations offices, play a more prominent role in shaping global drug policy.
This brings us to the third key moment, perhaps the central one: the breakdown of the Vienna consensus. For the first time in recent history, Member States resorted to voting and adopting two resolutions: one on alternative development (45 votes in favor) and another on drug overdose prevention through public health approaches (38 votes in favor). According to the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), although the negotiations were long and several countries that supported the resolutions did not want to give in to certain requests, the sponsors, such as Thailand and the United States, advocated until the end for adopting the resolutions by consensus. . Others, led by Iran and Russia, who were blocking the resolutions, were the ones who requested the vote.
The US-led resolution, connected to Blinken's suggestion, generated great controversy by including the term “harm reduction”: an approach that seeks to minimize the risks associated with the use of psychoactive substances, prioritizing human rights and public health. instead of prohibition and criminalization. Curiously, a term that, in the past, the United States has also opposed.
It now remains to be seen what implications this precedent will have in future sessions and in the international debate on drug control. For example, if there will be some nostalgia for having broken the essence of these sessions and this vote was just an exception, if countries like Russia, China and Iran will use it to their advantage to continually criticize the position of the United States and its allies for "not be committed to a drug-free world,” or whether the vote will be used again to advance more progressive drug policies. What is clear is that the United States continues to have great weight in these spaces and, if it were not the sponsor of that resolution, the result would possibly be different.
The last milestone is the leadership that Colombia is exercising in this scenario, pushed by the country's ambassador, Laura Gil, in Vienna. Although there is not always coherence between international discourses and policies implemented at the national and local level, it was fair and necessary for the country recognized as one of the best students in the (failed) fight against drugs to begin to position itself as a voice of change. .
During the high-level segment, virtually, President Petro was more forceful than ever in his speech, describing the international oversight system as “anachronistic and indolent” and highlighting the need for a UN that is neither “deaf nor blind.” . In addition, Foreign Minister Murillo, present at the CND, intervened to read the joint declaration of 62 countries, led by Colombia (something unthinkable years ago), which demands a transformation in the vision of world drug policy. And both Colombia's momentum and previous milestones are also the result of the hard work and influence of various civil society organizations.
Given Colombia's decision to become a voice of change, some questions also arise: how will the country take advantage of the last two years of this Government, considering that one option is for the next government to resume a passive and conservative approach to drugs? ? How will the bloc of 62 countries seeking change in this area be maintained and consolidated? And finally, will the fact that the United States no longer places cocaine at the center of its anti-drug discourse be taken advantage of in some way?
All of these milestones together suggest that, at least on this occasion, the balance has moved away from the prohibitionist point at which the system has remained in recent decades. What we do not know yet is whether the change in direction will be consolidated or if the pendulum will end up returning to its original position.
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