The NZ Drug Foundation says a major new report on international drug policy reform over the past 10 years shows that the drug control system has failed and countries like New Zealand urgently need to change direction.
The UNGASS decade in review: Gaps, achievements and paths for reform report assesses progress made since the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs, widely viewed as a potential turning point in global drug policy.
NZ Drug Foundation Executive Director Sarah Helm says it paints an incredibly grim picture, with many challenges hampering efforts to reduce the harm from drugs including the financial crisis facing the United Nations, threats to the international rule of law, AI-fuelled illicit trade and reduced funding for harm reduction.
“Old tropes, and the ‘war on drugs’ approach that is regaining momentum in the United States and elsewhere, need to end. Aotearoa New Zealand risks sliding into the same chaos seen in parts of North America if nothing changes,” Helm says.
“All the evidence tells us these approaches are continuing to push things in the wrong direction – the increase in harm and deaths globally over the last ten years is just staggering.”
The report shows that under the current international settings:
- More drugs are being consumed.
- More potent and new substances have emerged, many of which are volatile and toxic.
- More people are using drugs. An estimated 316 million people aged 15-64 used drugs in 2023, which is a 28% increase since 2016 and far outpaces 9% global population growth.
- More people are dying as a result of drug use. Between 2016 and 2021, more than 2,678,000 people died (not including deaths from armed conflict in countries that supply the global drug market).
There has been an alarming level of incarceration that has disproportionately affected marginalised communities. About 20% of the global prison population – or one in five people – is in prison for drug offences. Of those people, 22% or 2.5 million people are in prison for drug possession alone.
“Sadly, these international trends are all too familiar in New Zealand. Our Safer Drug Laws for Aotearoa New Zealand report shows that everything from addiction, to overdose deaths, to criminalisation have increased under our current approach – it’s painfully obvious that we need to change,” Helm says.
“We lose almost three New Zealanders per week to overdose, methamphetamine and cocaine use have doubled in the past year, new toxic substances like nitazenes are killing people and 3,000 New Zealanders have been criminalised for cannabis consumption in the past two years.”
More and more money has been spent on reducing supply, including drug busts, to little or no effect. In fact, mounting evidence shows that law enforcement strategies aimed at disrupting trafficking organisations have often been counterproductive. Instead of reducing supply, they have fragmented criminal groups, creating more dynamic and violent competition over illegal markets.
“Both internationally and here at home, we spend vastly more on combating the supply of drugs than on reducing demand and the harm caused. This approach has not worked so it’s time to take a different approach,” Helm argues.
There are a few bright spots to be found over the 10 years the report canvasses. 59 jurisdictions in 39 countries have now adopted some form of decriminalisation, compared to 33 jurisdictions in 23 countries in 2016. And 45 countries – including Aotearoa New Zealand – have adopted laws and policies to improve access to medicinal cannabis since 2016, bringing the global total to 63.
Helm says that for New Zealand to start turning things around, decriminalisation of drug use, coupled with significant investment in health and harm reduction services, has the clearest evidence of success internationally.
“For example, Portugal’s two decades of experience of decriminalisation is compelling,” she says. “Overdose deaths fell dramatically, HIV transmission rates plummeted, and the burden on the criminal justice system was eased, all without an increase in drug use. Portugal now has one of the lowest rates of drug-related deaths in the EU.”
