Four drug policy groups monitoring international negotiations underway on reforms to United Nations drug control policies say Canada has joined ranks with China, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan and Russia in aggressively opposing European endorsements of health policies aimed at reducing harms, such as HIV transmission, among drug users.
Canada also opposes the participation of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in future UN drug policymaking sessions, observers report from the Vienna negotiations.
Those negotiations will culminate in a draft statement in March, outlining a new set of UN principles that will serve to guide talks by world leaders at the UN General Assembly in 2016. A new global drug control regime will be adopted to replace the 2009 framework at the Assembly. The 2009 statement did not endorse harm reduction, but promoted "the war on drugs" polices favoured by US negotiators at the time. European negotiators are pressing to have much stronger emphasis placed on harm reduction in the new statement.
At the latest negotiation session on Jan. 14, "Canada once again led the charge" against a UN endorsement for "risk and harm mitigation and reduction measures" according to the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), a UK-based group at the negotiations. IDPC staff who spoke to CMAJ asked not to be named due to concerns they could be barred from observing future negotiations. In a blog report posted after the session, one IDPC observer stated that Canada was "very vocal throughout" the session and opposed any references to the term, "harm reduction."
In what IDPC staff describe as a "fascinating standoff," the European Union, alongside Norway and Switzerland, "have remained adamant that they would not accept any compromise on this language." Negotiators for the USA have expressed support for specific interventions such as needle and syringe programs, the IDPC reports, "but not for the term harm reduction."
