State drug policy strategy: with Europe or with Russia?
Will police officers plant bags of weed on teenagers, demanding bribes and ruining their lives? Will the state contribute to the spread of HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis in Ukraine? Will the law enforcement system stop competing to put more people in jail for our taxes and start fighting organised drug crime? The answers to these questions are rooted in the State Drug Policy Strategy for 2023-2030. Its adoption was postponed for three years due to a lack of political will, but now it is important for Ukraine's accession to the EU and the document has been put up for public discussion. NGOs that have once again submitted their comments to the document express well-founded fears that the Government will ignore the proposals and maintain the repressive model of drug policy based on the Russian model.
"The published text was created in 2021," says Nazariy Sovsun, co-organiser of the Freedom March for Drug Policy Reform and board member of the NGO Urban Initiatives and Social Transformations. "During this time, the legal field of the civilised world has been radically updated, science and technology are moving forward, and Ukraine can only respond to this with an archaic text that does not correspond to the realities of today.
The good news that Ukraine almost has a national drug strategy is overshadowed by the bad: there is a risk that the government will be tempted to adopt this important document purely formally, without diving into the details, which is water under the bridge and not at all European principles. It may even adopt it without any intention of implementing it. Just for the sake of a tick in the certificate of readiness for European integration."
And this cannot be allowed to happen, the participants of the press conference said. Because European integration is not about words, but about principles. And fundamental human rights are not an empty sound. The unhealthy, punitive drug policy of the state creates problems for the whole society.
"At present, Ukraine has an inadequately low minimum threshold for criminal prosecution, much lower than in many European countries. In practice, this means that all police efforts are spent on punishing people who use psychoactive substances. And they are simply not left to fight organised drug crime, which is involved in the distribution and sale, in particular among minors," says Oleg Dymarev, Director of the All-Ukrainian Union of People with Drug Dependence (VOLNA) Charitable Foundation. Oleg Dymaretsky.
People end up in prison, lose access to quality medical services, and this contributes to the epidemic of HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis. The State Drug Policy Strategy until 2020 planned amendments to the Ministry of Health Order No. 188 "On Approval of Tables of Small, Large and Extra Large Sizes of Illicitly Trafficked Narcotic Drugs, Psychotropic Substances and Precursors", but the Government ignored them.
"It would be much more effective to allocate funds for harm reduction programmes, rehabilitation and substitution maintenance therapy programmes, and overdose prevention. And for the money saved, we could buy drones and turnstiles for the Armed Forces," says Oleg Dymaretskyi.
It is now extremely important to establish public control over the State Drug Policy Strategy, to ensure that the Government incorporates European norms and principles into it, rather than the dogmas of the Soviet Union.
To jointly monitor the government's actions, the press conference participants announced the creation of the #DRUGPOLICYUA civil society coalition, which will be guided by the following principles:
It is unacceptable to plan to adopt both the text of the Strategy and the operational plan for its implementation at the same time. The strategy is adopted first, and then the plan is developed. The Ministry of Health of Ukraine submitted both documents for discussion at the same time.
- A new strategy cannot be adopted without analyzing the state of implementation of the previous one. Otherwise, the succession and continuity of the state drug policy (almost a verbatim quote from the draft) will be based solely on the tradition of selective implementation of the drug policy roadmap.
- The text of the Strategy should contain clear indicators of the Strategy's implementation, which will help to assess the success of its implementation. However, these indicators can only be developed in relation to the final version of the text, which is currently being discussed.
- The state strategy must meet the qualification criteria for Ukraine's accession to the EU, emphasise the commitment to strengthening institutions and legal norms that ensure democracy, uphold the rule of law, gender equality, protect human rights and dignity of vulnerable groups, and ensure freedom of scientific research, including research on psychoactive substances with therapeutic potential.
- The document cannot ignore the realities of martial law and a full-scale war with Russia. The Ukrainian state strategy cannot resonate with the "anti-drug" doctrine of the Russian Federation, which is nothing more than an instrument of influence in the international arena;
It is reported that the civil coalition #DRUGPOLICYUA is open to all organizations that share these principles.
"31 August marks International Overdose Awareness Day. This is another sad reminder of how valuable and vulnerable human life is. It is human life and health that should be at the centre of the state strategy. We urge NGOs and movements to join our coalition association DRUGPOLICY.UA, we will make sure that the Government adopts an effective State Drug Policy Strategy for the period up to 2030, which will really bring Ukraine closer to the EU," said Igor Kozak, coordinator of the DRUGPOLICY.UA consortium, representative of the Expert Council on Drug Policy at the Eurasian Network of People who use Drugs (ENPUD).
The participants of the press conference announced the creation of the #DRUGPOLICYUA association to jointly monitor the government's actions.
On 30 August, the public discussion of the State Drug Policy Strategy of Ukraine for 2023-2030, organised by the Ministry of Health, ended. Now, all proposals for changes to the document submitted by NGOs must be analysed, accepted or rejected by the Government in a public and transparent manner. However, in the previous round of public discussions of the Strategy in 2021, the Government ignored the proposals of organisations representing the views of more than 300,000 people who use drugs.
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