Polak's question: Round 3

On Thursday, Mr. Costa addressed the conference in the most progressive speech he has ever made. (We had initially heard that the title of his speech was “Harm Reduction: A Controversial Issue.” This was eventually modified by members of his staff one day before the speech was given). Mr. Costa noted that the drug control system focused mostly on law enforcement in the past couple of decades, rather than on public health, causing “suspected but unintended” consequences.

“The first and foremost unintended consequence was that of public health, which actually is implied in the drug conventions as the first principle, was pushed in the background, and was more honoured in lipservice and rhetorics than in practice,” said Mr. Costa.

“Indeed, when it comes to drug control, and looking again at the reality or at the budget commissions in our countries, spending on public security has been a multiple of several times what was spent on public health”.

Instead of a comprehensive and health-centered staregy drug policies chosed to pursue short term, ideology-based solutions, leaving “the public confused and drug addicts neglected”. Therefore Mr. Costa cautioned the conference “to go back to the roots of drug control, read the conventions once again, apply the conventions exhaustively, and put health at the center stage of drug control”.

Though his dream is a world free of drugs and poverty, Mr. Costa acknowledged that there is no chance to stop drug trafficking in the short term. Because there are 25 million people heavily dependent on drugs, we need to implement systems of harm reduction, as well as supply and demand reduction.

“In addition to alternative development, so that we stop the farmers, law enforcement, so that we stop traffickers, prevention and treatment, so as to prevent people from falling to the drugnet of drug addiction...we must mitigate the negative consequenes of drugs, both for those who suffer from dependence, as well as for society at large.” said the head of UNODC.

“In particular we have to mitigate the risk that drug abuse will lead at least in some countries to the HIV pandemic related to injecting drug use.” He reported that the HIV/AIDS department of UNODC is the fastest growing program of the agency, and invited the audience to applaud for Christian Krol (UNODC’s coordinator for HIV/AIDS) and his team.

One of his remarks seemed to be a reference to his debate with Mr. Polak: “We want results, not discussion, not rhetorics, not endless debates.” He criticized again fashion models “who snort or sniff or lick drugs”, but yet are idolized by the media. Nevertheless, Mr. Costa quoted the words of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: “countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes”. He repeated his statement made first at the CND in March on the condemnation of death penalty against drug offenders: “I strongly believe that altough drugs kills we should not kill because of drugs”.

Mr. Costa invited NGOs to participate in the discussion forum organized by the Vienna NGO Committee in July 2008. This Committee aims to catalyze civil society contribution to the UNGASS review process.

As a personal note, I appreciate the recent positive changes in UNODC’s attitudes to harm reduction and people who use drugs. However, I think there are at least two major contradictions in this speech.

Firstly, Mr. Costa calls for an end to the neglect of "drug addicts" (not a very nice term) and respect for their human rights –yet at the same time, he does not condemn criminal laws that are major factors behind the discrimination and stigmatization of drug users.

Secondly, he says public health should be restored to its place at the heart of drug control. Contrastly, however, he claims his agency is “not a public health institution”. If drug control is a public health quest, how comes that the UN agency responsible for coordinating global drug control efforts is not a public health agency? I believe in progess, and I hope that these controversies are only symptoms of the infantile sickness of the drug control regime, which is moving from prohibition to harm reduction.