The 54th Commission on Narcotic Drugs hosted a special panel discussion entitled Illicit drugs and socio-economic development: a complex and critical relationship, organised by OSI in collaboration with the Nossal Institute for Global health Melbourne and German Development and moderated by Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, Director of the Global Drug Policy Program at the Open Society Institute (OSI).
Sempruch welcomed the participants and opened the interesting debate with NGOs and official delegate representatives about the recently published report Dependent on Development: The interrelationships between illicit drugs and socioeconomic development written by Nick Crofts, Professor of International health at the Nossal Institute for Global health in University of Melbourne.
Crofts briefed attendees about his work, explaining that his report shows the multifaceted relationships between illicit drug production, trade, use and socioeconomic development. It demonstrates the ways in which the implementation of drug control policies often hinder development sector gains and furthermore, the ways in which many development sector policies actually increase vulnerability to illegal drugs. It is surprising, how – in spite of the complex interrelationships between illicit drug and socioeconomic development – drug control and development policies tend to occur in isolation from each other, as exemplified by the lack of inclusion of illicit drugs in the Millennium Development Goals.
Daniel Brombacher from the Programm Entwicklungsortientierte Drogenpolitik (EOD) of the GIZ, a German agency for international cooperation, explained the nexus of drugs and development, specifying that drug economies tend to flourish in insecure settings and under condition of fragile statehood. They are often governed by violent means of market regulation due to the absence of peaceful approaches to conflict settlement.
Crofts told Orange the media usually mixes up the terms “drug use” and “drug addiction” explaining that the UN reports on Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam for example clearly show that drug use does not necessarily lead to addiction. Crofts added: “My own theory is that there is a very strong historical trend of looking at the causes of drug addiction by analyzing drugs themselves, but in fact if we isolate people who uses drugs this does not mean that we solved addiction problems. In Vietnam, for instance, if you use drugs then you are considered socially evil.” However professor Crofts refuses assumptions that make a drug user an invalid society member because “this will encourage them to be irresponsible in their their actions and behaviour in their surroundings, using drug usage an excuse for making mistakes”.
Crofts recalled the story of one of the officers of the National Authority for Combating Drugs in Cambodia, who spoke to him about his intentions to advocate new drug policies that respect drug users as human beings and not as passive society members. However one week later, the officer was arrested for corruption, although he was innocent, just because he had different political views than the ruling regime. “The drug war is used to get rid of political opponents in some regimes,” said Crofts.
Speakers at this panel agreed that all aspects of development, ranging from infrastructure projects to education programs, especially donor funded, must consider implications for illicit drug production, trade, and use, as is currently done with respect to poverty, the environment or gender dynamics.
