Statement to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, March 2013: The unintended negative consequences of the ‘war on drugs’

PRI delivered a statement in a panel session – ‘The Legalisation of drugs: can it help curb organised crime?’ at the 128th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Quito, Ecuador in March 2013.

The statement flags the often disproportionate criminalisation, with little differentiation between use and possession on one end of the scale and large-scale commercial trafficking in drugs at the other end; the link between substance abuse and poverty, the indirect contribution of the criminalisation of use, drug treatment and harm reduction activities to the global HIV/ AIDs epidemic; and also our concern that the death penalty is still imposed for drug related offences in 33 countries.