 Your Excellency Ambassador Vladimir Goluskov, Chair of the 59th Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, Your Excellency Ambassador Khaled Sharma, Chairman of the AMGAS Board, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Ministers, Heads of Delegation, Honourable Members of the Board, Your Excellencies, Chairman of the Regional Groups, Distinguished Delegates. Albert Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. In spite of the validity of this affirmation, this is what we have in fact been doing for nearly 40 years now, when President Nixon first declared the war against drugs. The battles that have been won from time to time throughout this period and the noble desire to continue the struggle against the scourge cannot be compared to the overall balance based on the evidence collected throughout these four decades. It is true that this evidence shows that the drug cartels have been severely affected but often at the cost of the sacrifice of hundreds of lives, as has been the case in Colombia. At the same time, however, it indicates that the world of drugs has changed since 40 years ago when the declaration of the war on drugs was first made. The difference between producer countries and consumer countries, which was one of the underpinning pillars of this policy, has become increasingly opaque. Drugs of natural origin, which were the target of the most significant efforts to date, has now begun to give way to drugs of synthetic origin. These changes make clear that the world of illicit drugs has changed in view of the attempt to revise the policy to tackle these drugs, given that partial successes that had been obtained now fail to meet with the new realities that require a diverse approach, diverse from the approach adopted to date. Global figures regarding consumption are alarming, nearly 250 million users. The derivative of every six users lack access to treatment for addiction and day by day more than 500 die because of situations which are linked to drug use. Situations which could be easily prevented, such as poor quality or contamination of the substance used, lack of hygiene in the usage methods or problems related to overdose. In contrast to this harsh reality, there is an equally alarming fact to take into account. 75% of the global population has little or no access to pain medication, which is manufactured based on controlled substances given their close relationship with the world of prohibited drugs. While speaking to you, a new psychoactive substance will start to circulate on the market. Tons of cocaine and heroin are being sent from production areas to the poles of use in consumption and many communities remain exposed to the influence of criminal organisations. Each minute of this speech while I speak to you, a young person in a marginalised neighbourhood will die because of clashes related to this profitable business. The millions of dollars that are generated from the drugs trade are corrupting our institutions from within, permeating the systems of justice and unravelling the social fabric. Given this reality, a clear reflection of the evidence collected throughout these years of war on drugs, it would be foolish to insist on maintaining unaltered day policy that was implemented 40 years ago claiming that in the future this policy will lead to better results. Rather we should be aware of the fact that these new realities require that we set aside a black and white vision of the problem that is based on clearly repressive parameters in order to thus find a more efficient way to address the various manifestations of the drugs phenomenon. This was the concern underpinning the declaration of 2012 when the presidents of Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico called for a revision of the current drugs policy. The first significant consequences of this call were the convening of a United Nations special session of its General Assembly in April 2016 and the various proprietary meetings that have been held by various nations in order to evaluate the situation. Now that the taboo or silence has been broken, which in itself is already an achievement, the idea that a public health approach that must be promoted has gained ground, taking the place of a purely repressive approach, not only because prison does not cure addiction but also because in doing so we will be able to do more to control the harm caused by clandestine drug use and which has cost so many lives every day, in particular in vulnerable sections of the global population. It is equally clear that the drugs policy must be made completely compatible with a human rights perspective. It is difficult to conceive of a drugs policy that is aimed at protecting and maintaining the well-being and health of human beings in light of current conventions which at the same time would fail to respect one of the other milestone achievements of the international community, namely the commitment to respect human rights. Accordingly, we call for human rights treaties and conventions to be considered as a source and framework of legal reference for the design, evaluation and measurement of the drugs policy. Increasingly, more and more voices are calling for the need to provide countries with a certain degree of flexibility when it comes to interpreting their conventions, as long as this does not impinge upon other nations. This call is based on an incontrovertible evidence, namely the fact that a drugs policy cannot assume that the realities faced by all countries are identical and that accordingly the guidelines of a single drugs policy can be applied to all corners of the planet in abstract. If we reach a consensus on the clear advantages of focusing on a public health approach compared to a purely repressive approach as regards drug users, including an explicit reference to the need to adopt measures related to harm reduction, regarding the need to ensure that the drugs controlled treaties that have been developed by the international community respect and uphold what has been developed in the human rights field and above all, regarding the urgent need to provide countries with a degree of flexibility in their interpretation of these conventions in keeping with their own local realities, in doing so we will be showing the world that we are not blind to the evidence that has been compiled throughout these long years of combating drugs. It will show that we are aware of the manner in which the universe of illicit drugs has changed and above all, it will show that we are not so foolish so as to insist that we maintain a drugs policy that needs to be adapted would simply be allowed to continue unchanged. An equally important step that we must adopt in this direction would be the establishment of a group of experts who can progress in the consideration of further alternatives that will allow us to adjust our drugs policy to the reality based on the evidence that is available to us. This is not an attempt to establish a body that in any way would usurp the duties of the CND but rather to establish a group that will assist the CND through the design of guidelines and proposals that will make adjustments and alignments possible in the fields of harm reduction, the identification of new challenges, taking into account the realities of the complex and changing world of illicit drugs, access to controlled substances for medical or scientific purposes, or strengthening international cooperation based on the principle of common and shared responsibility. For Colombia, it will be most important to ensure that the outcome document of this session includes an explicit reference to the need to establish this group of experts. The establishment of this group will show that we understand the need to constantly monitor the drugs policy given the fact that this phenomenon is permanently evolving and moreover will make it possible to make alignments or adjustments to the policy in a far more flexible manner than we have been able to do so to date. Our aim is not nor has it ever been to legalize drugs nor to undermine international drugs conventions. We simply request that based on the evidence compiled throughout 40 years of combating this scourge, we recognize the fact that time has now come to adapt to the new challenges and realities. Given this fact and once again I would conclude by quoting Einstein, it would indeed be an insanity to maintain the current drugs policy thinking that this current drugs policy will somehow lead us to better results than those that have been obtained to date. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Minister, for this statement.