World leaders call for legalisation of drugs

Leaders around the world have called for drugs to be legalised following a report that claims prohibition has almost no effect on drug use.

The report, published by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, supports the removal of penalties, both criminal and civil, against those found in possession and those found using drugs. The report claims that the criminalisation of drugs has had ‘little or no impact’ on the amount of drug use. Their statistics show that drug use has increased by 20% between 2006 and 2013, making the number of drug users globally around 246 million.

Chair, Ruth Dreifuss, said, “After years of denouncing the dramatic effects of prohibition and the criminalisation of people that do no harm but use drugs on the society as a whole, it is time to highlight the benefits of well-designed and well-implemented people centered drug policies.”

British entrepreneur, Richard Branson, Kofi Anna, the former UN secretary-general, and former presidents of Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Switzerland are on the panel of the Global Commission on Drug Policy. The report cites several decriminalisation policies that have been successful. At the top of their list is Portugal, which, 15 years ago, changed its law on drug use from criminal sanctions to civil penalties and health interventions. It also criticises President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, who encouraged his people to execute those involved in the drug trade. This resulted in more than 3,600 people being killed during President Duterte’s first hundred days in office.