Africa: Outflanking the War on Drugs?

New York — It's widely acknowledged that the "war on drugs" has failed. A militarised approach based on prohibition and incarceration has stoked staggering levels of violence and misery, cost billions of dollars, and failed to reduce either supply or demand.

In April, the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) will adopt a consensus position on drug control, but few are expecting a shake-up to the current, conservative, global framework.

That's why some reformers are turning to the Sustainable Development Goals as a blueprint for the future.

Critics of the "war on drugs" campaign have long evoked the term "harm reduction" to lobby for a more humane approach that treats addiction as a health problem rather than a crime.

They point to glaring contradictions between the current drug policy framework and the new - universally endorsed - global development agenda.

See In-Depth: War on Drugs - Collateral damage

Not only...

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