After the War on Drugs [EVENT]
After the War on Drugs: European Perspectives on Drug Policy and Public Health
Thursday, September 28, 2017
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
66 West 12th Street, Room 510
Join Dr. Thomas Kattau and Elena Hedoux, members of the esteemed Council of Europe (the continent’s leading human rights organization), for a timely discussion on drug policy and public health.
The ‘war on drugs’ has for decades shaped drug policies around the world. Then in 2011, the Global Commission on Drug Policy declared: “The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. Fifty years after the initiation of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and years after President Nixon launched the US government’s war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed.” At the United Nations General Assembly Session on the World Drug Problem in 2016 a large group of countries signaled that they were not ready to continue a ‘war on drugs.’ Since then a debate about a new approach to the world drug problem has emerged.
Europe has already for some time explored new responses to drug problems and changed its focus from criminalization to a public health oriented approach. Elena Hedoux and Thomas Kattau will outline the experiences with public health oriented drug policies in Europe and the challenges arising now in the era of ‘designer drugs’ and other new psychoactive substances. The emerging trends will require a fundamental re-thinking of existing drug policies.
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