In April 2003, the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs will meet in Vienna to conduct the 5-year review of its “global program of action on drug policy”. This provides an important opportunity to take stock of the progress to date, to improve and adapt policies, and to revise the legal basis on which policy development depends.

There is a growing public concern in Europe about the economic, social, health and security consequences of current drug policy. The EU and its present and future member states have an important opportunity and special obligation to contribute to the Vienna conference and to the search for more effective global solutions.

Many European countries, after years of unsuccessful application of traditional approaches as laid down by the current UN International Conventions on Drug Control *, have been actively engaged in exploring new solutions, in full awareness of the complex multidimensional character of the drugs issue.

THEREFORE the Comité des Sages concludes the following:

The use of licit and illicit drugs is a harmful societal reality with potential negative impact on individuals and communities and needs to be tackled in a more realistic, dynamic way.

It is now widely recognized that an effective drugs policy should be based on the minimization of harm both to individuals and to the community at large.

Policies based solely on criminal sanctions have failed to demonstrate effectiveness: economic corruption increases, organized crime prospers and developing economies are hard hit by military and environmental (crop eradication) interventions that have no apparent positive effect. At the same time the marginalisation of drug- users is compounded.

A one-sided repressive approach to drug related crime and drug nuisance inevitably results in drug users going into hiding, in inadequate priority being given to contact with health and social services, and in behavior which leads to increased transmission of infections diseases, in particular HIV/AIDS.

Many European governments have consequently been reducing the role of the criminal justice system in the case of heavy users by implementing more appropriate sanctioning systems, diversion programs, and informal discretion policies. Drug-use offenders are oriented towards treatment, counseling, education and social reintegration instead of blunt imprisonment. Risk reduction strategies such as methadone maintenance, drug testing in discotheques, injection rooms, needle exchanges have been expanding throughout Europe. These policies are straining the limits of activities permitted under the current UN International Conventions.

There is therefore an urgent need for a multidimensional and integrated approach, which aims at reducing both supply and demand, and which also integrates harm reduction strategies designed to protect the health of the individual drug-user as well as the wellbeing of society as a whole.

The UN International Conventions continue to reflect an essentially repressive and one -dimensional approach, and pose a major obstacle to further progress. They should therefore be revised where necessary to promote a multidimensional and integrated approach, specifically with regard to the criminalization of activities related to consumption.

European governments should focus attention on this concern when the Commission on Narcotic Drugs meets in Vienna in April 2003, and seek ways to arrive at a more balanced and effective approach for the future.

The European Union (its existing as well as its future member states) should be encouraged to intensify cooperation in this field, particularly by exploring the potential for the organized transfer of good practice in terms of harm reduction, both for individuals and communities.

* namely The 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, as amended by the 1972 Protocol, The Convention on Psychotropic Substances, 1971 and the Convention against Illicit Trafficking in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, 1988