 This year is the 50th anniversary of the keystones of the international drug control system, 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. Some critics say this convention is out of date, but I disagree. The provisions of the convention remain valid as it does its central focus on the protection of health. I urge the international community to rejuvenate the convention and encourage member states to re-dedicate yourselves to implementing its provisions. It's not surprising to hear UNODC Executive Director stating this, because his role is to defend the current system. But we think that there is a very urgent need to reform the 1961 convention. I would like to ask you to speak more about your views about these 50 years. Do you regard it as a success story? Did we make progress in these 50 years and what are the signs of this progress? It's a time, well, maybe not to celebrate, but to take stock of what has been done and what has not been done. And unfortunately, in spite these 50 years, the problem of drug dependence, the problem of drug abuse and the problem of drug trafficking has not diminished. So UNODC, as a guardian of UN conventions, will continue to base its activities on this convention as well as on other conventions against drugs. If we acknowledge that the global drug problem is changing all the time, then why don't we reopen the conventions and begin to look at what's in there to see if it can be updated? What's wrong with an updated convention? They don't really want to look at the cost of the drug war, the impact of the drug war and the way the conventions have played into this. I come from the region of Eastern Europe where we have the highest number of HIV related cases to injecting drug use. And that's just one of the issues and you can go on and go on with such issues that hepatitis C, overdose and all the other non-health but social related consequences like abuse of the rights of the people. The people that put it into prisons rather than offered treatment and in this way cut from the society. 50 years into the 61 convention now and the question has to be asked, can these treaties even potentially deliver on what they're supposed to deliver? If it's supposed to be about the health and welfare of mankind then why is health and welfare relating to drugs deteriorating so badly? Why is drug use largely increasing? Why are drug related harms so controversial to address? Why are our prison populations skyrocketing and so on and so forth? We all know these things. So I disagree with the concept, the idea that in order to rejuvenate the conventions we just need to look at them given contemporary circumstances. I think they need to be looked at afresh and I think that's something people have been saying for a very long time. But it's difficult, it's a nearly universally ratified international legal system, it's very hard to move that. We're here to launch what's a new global campaign and website called The War on Drugs, Count the Costs and Explore Alternatives. The fact is that no international body or government has to date properly counted the costs of the war on drugs let alone gone on to explore alternatives in this way. And the people involved in this campaign feel that it really is about time that was done. What we're saying now within this project is that choosing the War on Drugs approach that by its nature places control of the trade in the hands of organized crime and criminalizes many users is leading to the undermining of international development and security and the fueling of conflict. It's threatening public health, spreading disease and causing death. It's undermining human rights, it's promoting stigma and discrimination and it's creating crime and enriching criminals. It also causes deforestation and pollution and wastes billions on ineffective law enforcement. But the War on Drugs is a policy choice and we believe that it's vital that we explore the alternatives, we debate and explore the alternatives and we look at this through the lens of the best available evidence and the best available analysis. So we can count the costs of the current system and the benefits to and compare it meaningfully with those alternatives. This website which is up on the right hand side here, we intend to become a resource library that's of interest and use to anyone who cares about any of these cost areas that we're talking about.