COPOLAD promotes human rights-based drug policies at the VIII Latin American Drug Conference

During this week, the VIII Latin American Conference and the XX National Conference on Drug Policy was held in Buenos Aires, with the collaboration of the European cooperation programme COPOLAD III. The event brought together some of the leading specialists in public policies on drugs at regional and global level.

This discussion forum is one of the most important in Latin America in terms of drug policy in the region, which has allowed for fruitful debates between governments, academia, civil society, affected people and international organisations, and for progress to be made in this area.

The objectives of this Conference are, above all, the promotion of a social debate to promote non-punitive policies that are based on scientific evidence and respond effectively to drug-related problems, and the generation of an exchange between academics, policy makers and civil society at the regional level to keep the map of drug use, associated problems, policies and interventions in the region up to date.

At the meeting, several spaces have been created to address the most urgent human rights challenges for the region with representatives of governments, international organisations and civil society, in line with the work established by the European Drug Strategy and COPOLAD III. In fact, COPOLAD co-organised a session to analyse the current situation of the impact of drug policies on human rights in the region.

Likewise, the results of the Global Drug Policy Index in Latin America, which includes relevant aspects on human rights, were presented. A specific round table was also held on the opportunities for improving the results for human rights in drug policies in Latin America, with the participation of representatives of the National Drug Commissions of Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.

During the last day, a working session was held on plans to improve the results for human rights with respect to drug policies, and a second session of the COPOLAD working group discussed sustainable development, human rights and gender equality. The aim is to work on the roadmap for the HRD component and to identify participating countries interested in carrying out national improvement plans that COPOLAD can accompany.