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Welcome to the 55th session
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of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs.
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100 years ago the Hague open convention
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formed the basis for drug control
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and we have followed the long road since then.
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Today in 2012 we recognize that
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progress has been made
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but there is still a need to strengthen action
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and co-operation at the national, regional and international levels.
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It is a 100 years since the first
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international agreements on drug control.
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Whether you see that 100 years of success
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or a 100 years of failure I think there are all views across the spectrum.
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My personal view and the view of International Drug Policy Consortium
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is primarily we are talking about failure.
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The architects of the system sat out to resolve
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the global drug problem by repression,
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so that these supply of drugs was stifled
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and people did not want to use drugs
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and that demonstrably has not happened,
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so we can't call this in any way a success.
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There are some people including I think Mr. Fedotov
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who is calling on us to be better at repression to be stronger
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and to be better coordinated but I think most of our members
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and our movement are saying we know enough now,
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there is enough clear evidence
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that we have to change direction.
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TNI made a position paper on this anniversary,
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what do you say in your position paper?
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The facts that consumption level of opium in Asia
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has reduced so much is used as the main argument
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to claim success for the control regime itself.
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Part of the reduction of that widespread consumption
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has to do with the introduction of a whole range of new medicines on the market.
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The first treaties were not introducing immediately a prohibition regime
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it only tried to put some restrictions on the international trade
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of the controlled substances.
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Yesterday Mr. Morales presented a couple of coca products
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and he urged governments to correct a historical error
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which is banning of coca chewing.
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How do you comment this?
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Yeah he is perfectly right of course,
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it is one of the most blatant errors I would say
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in the history of this century of drug control.
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There is one article in the 1961 convention
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that literally says that the chewing of coca leaves has to be abolished,
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it is impossible to defend today.
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They withdrew from the single convention
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and that came into effect on the 1st of January
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and they are now trying to become a member again to readhere
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with a reservation which says
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in Bolivia the use of coca and the consumption of coca
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in its natural form will be allowed
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and also cultivation and distribution, marketing
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for the uses in its natural form will be allowed.
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We had Evo Morales here on Monday
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talking about why his country wants to make some changes
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to their drug control policies
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and there are many other Latin-American countries now
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starting to explore these options.
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At the moment we see still from the UN agencies
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an attempt to try to stop these processes
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where we do need to encourage them to be engaged with them
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and look for carefully planned improved policies
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rather than try pretend that everything is fine.
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What we have learned does not point us to legalisation as an answer
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in fact it is precisely because we recognize
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the drug problem as a public health issue
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that the United States steadfastly opposes the legalisation of drugs.
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Yesterday Gil Kerlikowske the US drug czar probably posed his message
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to the Latin Americans when he said that they strongly oppose legalisation
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at the same time you hear from Latin American leaders that they are,
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they need an open debate on legalisation
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what do you think what are the chances of
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of this kind of movement which is coming from Latin America now?
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To at least open the discussion about it
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including about the possibility of a legal regulated market
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is getting more and more support from Latin American countries.
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The countries that are now calling for opening of this debate
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most of those countries have not allowed
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also this past few years even relatively minor legislative changes
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in their own countries, that they could introduce without
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challenging the treaties.
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What do you think about the impact of the resolutions
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adopted here at the CND,
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what is the afterlife of these resolutions?
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CND resolutions, mostly you will never hear from them again,
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at least not at national level, they do very little impact at national level.
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What they do is that they enter into the UN lexicon
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which is where a lot of these ideas around drug policies
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are thashed out at the international level.
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What is the most important issue for you here at the CND?
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One of the things I am really excited about this week
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is one of the resolutions is about reducing opium over dose deaths.
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If that resolution goes through it means
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the countries, member states of the UN can go to WHO, UNODC
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and ask for help in setting up overdose death prevention programs
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which will really, it is a real practical resolution and will save people's life.
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ADVOCACY WORKS!
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The UN listened to the voice of civil society!
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The CND adopted the first resolution on overdoes prevention, that you can read here: