(Reuters) - There is increasing evidence that the war on drugs has failed, with criminalization often creating more problems than it solves, said Helen Clark, the head of the United Nations Development Program. Speaking ahead of Thursday's presentation of the UNDP's 2013 Human Development Report, Clark, a former New Zealand prime minister, said Latin American leaders should be encouraged to develop different policies to tackle the drug scourge.
"I've been a health minister in my past and there's no doubt that the health position would be to treat the issue of drugs as primarily a health and social issue rather than a criminalized issue," Clark told Reuters in an interview. "Once you criminalize, you put very big stakes around. Of course, our world has proceeded on the basis that criminalization is the approach," she added. Clark did not prescribe remedies to the Latin American governments but said they should "act on evidence," noting that she favoured treating drugs as a public health problem.
