Today, more than ever before, a strong emphasis on human rights, dignity and freedom must be the core of drug policies. We should continue in our endeavour to guard vulnerable groups, regardless of their age, colour, gender or nationality. Everyone has the right to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. In this regard, we underscore our strong commitment to the comprehensive outcome document of the 2016UNGASS and all commitments set in international human rights law. We must promote a truly evidence-based approach on harm reduction philosophy. Evidence today leads us towards abandoning extreme punitive policies based on the non-attainable ideology of an abstinent world. This ideology actually seems to create more serious unwanted consequences than provide solutions, such as destabilising countries and whole regions,creating narco states and contributing to globally organized crime, corrupting governments, or stigmatizing people with mental health problems, and even creating epidemics. The victims of such harsh policies still based on the idea of the War on Drugsare usually those most vulnerable people. In this regard, we must strongly oppose the imposition of disproportionate and inhumane penalties, especially the death penalty, for drug-related offences. We must support policies, such as decriminalization of drugs for personal use, that are, as evidence proven, the right way forward.
