Improving global drug policy: UNGASS 2016 and beyond
Past Event
As the world prepares for the 2016 United Nations Special Session of the General Assembly on the World Drug Problem, the global counternarcotics regime faces profound challenges. An increasing number of countries now find the regime’s emphasis on punitive approaches to illicit drugs to be problematic and are asking for reform. However, critical players such as Russia and China remain committed to the preservation of the existing approaches. In addition, the United States, creator of the regime in the 1950s, has grown less interested in playing the role of the world’s toughest drug enforcer.
As the international community debates how to move forward, Brookings has developed a series of policy briefs to evaluate the effectiveness and costs of international counternarcotics policies. The series, entitled “Improving Global Drug Policy: Comparative Perspectives and UNGASS 2016,” is unique in its global scope, and analyzes the threats and harms resulting from drug use, the drug trade, and, at times, anti-drug policies themselves. The briefs examine the impacts on national security, violent crime, political corruption, economic development, public health, and human rights.
On Thursday, April 30, the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence and the Latin America Initiative at Brookings hosted a panel discussion with project authors on the prospects for global drug policy.
Agenda
Moderator
Arturo Sarukhan
Nonresident Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology, Latin America Initiative
Former Ambassador of Mexico to the United States
Panelists
Vanda Felbab-Brown
Director - Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors
Co-Director - Africa Security Initiative
Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology
Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy - Luskin School of Public Affairs, University of California, Los Angeles
Harold Trinkunas
Former Brookings Expert
Interim Co-Director and Senior Research Scholar, Center for International Security and Cooperation - Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University
John Walsh
Director for Drug Policy and the Andes - Washington Office on Latin America
Beau Kilmer
Senior Policy Researcher and Director, Drug Policy Research Center - RAND Corporation
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