who they saw as causing no harm to others, cannabis/ marijuana being a victimless crime. The Global Commission went further, encouraging Governments to experiment with the legal regulation of drugs. In tandem with law reform, it recommended increased health services to users and investment in prevention programs especially for youth. It envisaged that such measures would undermine organized crime and protect the security of citizens. 2.22. The same message was promoted in the OAS and accepted by CARICOM Member States.22 The OAS Drug Report influenced public opinion and encouraged “UN agencies to prioritize a discussion on drugs that focuses on public health, citizen security, human rights, and development. . . . Additionally, putting an end to the criminalization of drug users . . . , are ideas worth highlighting in the countries of the Americas.”23
This so-called ‘war on drugs’ has not only failed, it is also undermining efforts to tackle poverty, improve access to health, protect the environment, reduce violence, and protect the human rights of some of the most marginalised communities worldwide.
2.23. Significantly, the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs), which CARICOM has embraced enthusiastically, also support an anti-prohibitionist strategy toward cannabis, substituting with health and human rights emphases: “Since the mid-20th century, global drug policy has been dominated by strict prohibition and the criminalisation of drug cultivation, production, trade, possession and use – with the intention of creating a drug-free world. This so-called ‘war on drugs’ has not only failed, it is also undermining efforts to tackle poverty, improve access to health, protect the environment, reduce violence, and protect the human rights of some of the most marginalised communities worldwide.” 24 2.24. These are therefore not new recommendations. Further, CARICOM states have themselves acknowledged the need for such new approaches to drugs. As far back as July 2002, at the CARICOM Heads of Government Summit, the Heads acknowledged that drug addiction and use should be treated primarily as a “public health issue”.25 Despite this, successive CARICOM governments have not acted on their own advice, perpetuating a legal regime that has been shown not just to be unproductive and unfit for purpose, but inherently unjust.
As far back as July 2002, at the CARICOM Heads of Government Summit, the Heads acknowledged that drug addiction and use should be treated primarily as a “public health issue’
2.25. Notably, other countries have hosted Commissions and produced studies which have come to similar conclusions. In Canada, several national Commissions assessed the evidence and concluded that prohibition and criminalisation is ineffective, costly and constitutes poor public policy. This was articulated in Canada by the federal government’s Le Dain Commission in 1972, the Senate in 1974, the Canadian Bar Association in 1994, the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse in 1998, CAMH in 2000, the Fraser Institute in 2001, the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs in 2002, the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition in 2013, and the Canadian Public Health Association in 2014. The case for change generally rests on four evidence‐based propositions:
1) Prohibition has not succeeded in deterring cannabis use. “The OAS Drug Report, . . . has generated a very active and serious discussion of possible changes in cannabis laws throughout the hemisphere, from Chile to Jamaica. . . the Report asserted that . . . decisions will need to be taken on assessing signals and trends that lean toward the decriminalization or legalization of the production, sale, and use of marijuana . . . This new debate has shifted in tone from one principally about morality to one that recognizes a broad scope of gains and losses . . . Some jurisdictions are considering a legalized system in which the state retains control of all or much of the system of production and distribution. Other jurisdictions have given more freedom to private entrepreneurs to serve the market . . . the current debate surrounding cannabis policies in the Western Hemisphere is at the forefront of a reinvigorated global discussion about drug control.” OAS Drug Report, 16 Months of Debates and Consensus - “Toward a Hemispheric Drug Policy for the Twenty-First Century”. 2014. OAS, Washington. 23 Ibid, at p. 7. 24 Drug Policy and the Sustainable Development Goals -Why drug policy reform is essential to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals – Health, Poverty, Action, UNODC, 2015, https://www.unodc.org/documents/ungass2016/Contributions/Civil/Health_Poverty_Action/HPA_SDGs_drugs_policy_briefing_WEB.pdf. 25 <http://www.caricom.org/expframes2.htm> 22
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