The ‘war on drugs’ is ineffective and violates human rights, say researchers and NGOs

A 130 per cent increase in poppy growing, more than 72,000 deaths by overdose during 2017 in the United States alone (the highest level on record), nearly 4,000 prisoners with death sentences executed worldwide since 2009 for drug-related crimes: these are some of the alarming figures quoted in the International Drug Policy Consortium’s (IDPC) report published last October. The prohibitionist policies pursued by UN member states over the past decade as part of their ‘war on drugs’ have failed to contain the growth of drug trafficking in the world, it reports. They have, it would seem, done exactly the opposite.