Overcoming the 'Stockholm Syndrome': Five questions for the World Forum Against Drugs

There was a big party in Stockholm last week to which neither we, nor many of our friends, were invited. It was titled the World Forum Against Drugs (WFAD). Actually we’re not surprised we weren’t invited, as it was mostly only those soldiers marching in lock step with the ‘war on drugs’ who were included in the conference programme.

In essence, WFAD was the zero-tolerance crowd's response to the Beyond 2008 NGO Forum on Drugs, which took place in Vienna in July. That meeting agreed a significant Declaration and Recommendations from civil society to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. As the drug warriors were unable to get their way in Vienna, they instead decided to organise their own party. The big ‘achievement’ of this event was the production of the Declaration of the World Forum Against Drugs, signed on September 10th by 11 organisations (Yes that's them in the photo, with Calvina Fay of the Drug Free America Foundation front and centre). Given that the WFAD conference says it hosted over 600 participants from 82 countries, 11 signatories is a pretty unimpressive number. By way of comparison, the Declaration of the Beyond 2008 NGO Forum was agreed by consensus by the 300 delegates in attendance.

Before IHRA feel we can consider adding our name to this new Declaration, there are a few questions we need WFAD to clarify for us (Sorry for the delay in making our decision, but as we weren’t invited to the Stockholm shindig we didn’t have a chance to ask them earlier).

So here we go.

1. Why does the WFAD Declaration misrepresent the broad international support for Harm Reduction?

The preamble of the WFAD Declaration states that 'some organizations and local governments actively advocate...and promote policies such as “harm reduction”'.

Wow, from this description one would think harm reduction is an approach limited only to the lunatic fringes of some out of touch local governments. In fact, at least 82 countries and territories worldwide support harm reduction in official policy. Harm reduction is the official policy of UNAIDS, UNICEF, WHO and the European Union. Even WFAD’s beloved UNODC and INCB support harm reduction now. All of this is detailed in our report, Global State of Harm Reduction 2008.

Come to think of it, the Declaration that came out of the Beyond 2008 NGO Forum in Vienna earlier this year (a meeting in which many of the signatories to the WFAD Declaration participated) supported harm reduction.

2. Why does the Declaration misrepresent the content of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child?

The WFAD Declaration in Art 1 states that it supports the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and suggests that the Convention supports WFAD's opposition to harm reduction. This is simply untrue. In fact, the Convention guarantees the right to access to information (Art 13) and the right to health (Art 24), which according to UN experts includes harm reduction as a means of preventing epidemic diseases.

The WFAD Declaration then misquotes Art 33 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, suggesting it ‘stipulates…that children have the right to be protected from drug abuse.’ In reality, Art 33 states that governments ‘shall take all appropriate measures, including legislative, administrative, social and educational measures, to protect children from the illicit use of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances’. This is really quite different than what WFAD claims. For example, the use of methadone and buprenorphine to treat opioid dependence is not an ‘illicit use’, so is outside of the remit of Art 33. Harm reduction as a part of a rights based approach to HIV prevention is supported by UNICEF (They support IHRA's conference in fact). Harm reduction is even supported by Save the Children Sweden (who supported WFAD!)

The WFAD Declaration is also against decriminalisation of drug users, even though the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has consistently stated when discussing Art 33 that young people who use drugs should not be treated as criminals. UNICEF has also said (in their implementation handbook for the Convention) that placing harsh sentences on children who use drugs is a deeply ineffective form of protection.

The WFAD Declaration is also explicitly in favour of random school drug testing. Hard to reconcile that position with its supposed concern for the rights of children and young people. Indeed, the Convention on the Rights of the Child states that the child has the right to privacy (Art 16) and freedom from self incrimination and due process of law (Art 40).

And as an aside, given that so many of the speakers at the WFAD conference and signatories to its Declaration were from the USA (one of only two countries in the world that has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child), we wonder if we can count on our US colleagues attending WFAD to lobby the US government to support the treaty!!

3. Can you explain the reference to ‘drug abuse’ as ‘slavery’ in Art 2 of the Declaration?

The WFAD Declaration states that 'Drug dependence is a modern form of slavery'.

The legal definition of slavery under international law is contained in Art 1 of the 1927 Slavery Convention. It says that:

(1) Slavery is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised.

(2) The slave trade includes all acts involved in the capture, acquisition or disposal of a person with intent to reduce him to slavery; all acts involved in the acquisition of a slave with a view to selling or exchanging him; all acts of disposal by sale or exchange of a slave acquired with a view to being sold or exchanged, and, in general, every act of trade or transport in slaves.

We're sure that equating drugs with 'slavery' is probably an effective bit of hyperbole to whip up the zero-tolerance crowd. Indeed, Robert DuPont of the US employed this nonsensical analogy to great effect in his keynote address at the conference. We particularly love the bit where he says that 'Harm Reduction policies accept and even extend chemical slavery'. (We really don't make this stuff up. It's on page 9.)

But honestly, it really is pretty hard to see how drug use fits into the definition of slavery. Sure, drug dependency can potentially be deleterious to a person's health and well-being (of course not all persons who use drugs are dependent upon them, but that's another matter). Still it is not clear to us how a person's choice to use drugs leads to slavery. Can a person enslave themselves? Can they volunteer to be a slave? If drug dependency is a 'modern form of slavery', are ‘recovered addicts’ the modern equivalent of run-away slaves?

And as an aside, given the huge over incarceration of African-Americans in the US as a result of the 'war on drugs', isn't this analogy just a little insensitive?

Of course there are indeed modern forms of slavery occurring in the world today. In case the WFAD folks - or anyone else - is interested in working to end real forms of contemporary slavery, here is a good background document produced by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

4. Can you please point to the international treaty that states that ‘All people have the right to…have a life free of drug abuse.’?

As is perhaps evident from our previous questions, the drug warriors have a habit of playing fast and loose with the facts of international law. This is another example found in Art 2 of the WFAD Declaration. The ‘right to a drug free world’ or a ‘right to be drug free’ is one that is often claimed by the zero-tolerance, anti-harm reduction crowd to support their cause. The problem is that there ain’t one!

Whether WFAD likes it or not, you can’t just make up international law. International law is created by international treaties agreed between states. And there is no human rights treaty that enshrines a right to be drug free or to a drug free world.

While it is perhaps unfair to expect WFAD to be knowledgeable on international law, lots of the rest of us are. HR2, for one, is a programme that works specifically in international human rights law. So if WFAD can point out some human rights treaty that we have missed, perhaps they would be so kind as to do so. (And please don't cite Art 33 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It doesn't say this, and we'd be happy to explain why if the actual wording of the provision itself isn't clear enough.)

5. How do you reconcile the Declaration’s opposition to harm reduction with Art 5, which ‘urge[s] all people to work with their governments to strengthen, support, and encourage…the Office of Drugs and Crime, the International Narcotics Control Board…[and] the World Health Organization’. All of these bodies support harm reduction!

This question is self explanatory….

Anyway, these are the first five questions we have, and we have only gone through 5 of the 24 articles in the WFAD Declaration.

Needless to say, watch this space for more....