 Good morning and welcome to CSIS. I'm Steve Morrison, I'm senior vice president here at CSIS and I head our Global Health Policy Center. We're very fortunate today to have here with us four distinguished experts in the drug policy. I'll introduce them in just a moment. I want to offer special thanks to Catherine Strifel for helping organize this along with Joe Jordan and Alicia Kramer, Carolyn Schroek from CSIS. Michael Hahn from the Department of State was very helpful in coordinating and making it possible for this particular event to work in Ambassador Brownfield's schedule. So thanks to all of you. Let me say a few words about our speakers. You have in your laps their detailed bios. I'm not going to go into a great length. I'll just hit the high points on their bios. Also the flow that we're going to follow this morning. After my brief remarks I'll invite Ambassador Brownfield to come forward and deliver the keynote opening of his overview of U.S. policy on international drug control. That'll be the starting point for the discussion that will follow. After that I'll invite all of our other speakers to come join us here on the dais for a roundtable discussion. I promise you we'll try to get to you as quickly as possible to solicit your comments and questions from the audience. We are slated to go up until 11.30. One or another of our speakers may have to hive off slightly before that. So don't be dismayed by that. Ambassador Brownfield is the Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. He's been in that position for over three years now, so has considerable longevity and experience in that. That's a terribly important bureau to be heading in terms of combating illicit drugs and organized crime and providing extensive programs in law enforcement and rule of law. The budgets in that portfolio over $4 billion a year in 80 countries administered by over 5,000 employees he came to this position having served successively as Ambassador to Columbia 2007-2010. Critical period in the U.S. what's generally regarded as a successful program there, a partnership with Columbia in control of drugs. In that period an extensive program prior to that Ambassador to Venezuela and to Chile. Thank you Ambassador for being with us today to help put this program forward and to start off with a statement of U.S. policy. Ruth Dreyfus, former president of the Swiss Confederation is with us today. She served from 93 until 2002 as a federal counselor in Parliament. She was head of the Federal Department of Home Affairs under which public health, social insurance, scientific research, higher education, gender equality fall. And this was a critical period also in the social policies undertaken and harm reduction initiatives and others that we'll hear more about. She served in that position until 1997 and during 1999 she served as president of the Swiss Confederation. And as we'll hear in a moment she's been a very active member along with Michelle Kazakshin in the Global Commission. Dr. Michelle Kazakshin is the U.S. Secretary General's Special Envoy on HIV AIDS for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. He is a close friend and ally and known to many of you here. He has been at CSIS repeatedly and has been a partner in programs undertaken here, undertaken in Paris, undertaken in Geneva. Prior to this position he was the executive director of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. Prior to that was President Chiroc's Special Envoy on infectious diseases, on HIV AIDS and communicable diseases. Before that headed the National Agency for Research on AIDS in France. He's had the most distinguished career spanning several decades and is a widely regarded expert on the issues we're treating today and also more broadly on the whole spectrum of HIV AIDS, TB, malaria challenges. Dr. Kevin Sabat has come up to come to join us today. He has written, studied, researched, spoken widely about drug policy, drug markets and drug prevention. In 2000 he served in the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the Clinton Administration. 2003 and 2004 he was a senior speech writer in the Office of National Drug Control Policy under George W. Bush's Administration. 2009, 2011 was a political appointee and policy advisor under President Obama's Administration in the Drug Control Director's Office. So quite a remarkable career path arc to his career in serving in three separate administrations. In 2013 he founded with former Congressman Patrick Kennedy the smart approaches to marijuana. We'll hear more about that. Given what's happened lately in the legalization of recreational use in Colorado and in Washington State this has triggered an entire new national debate. I see many of you here in the audience who have contributed to that debate. Kevin has been a major voice in thinking through what some of the implications are in the long and the short term. The policy that we're talking about today an international drug policy encompasses many different considerations and we'll hear about those. In the search for the most effective means to accomplish quite complex and diverse goals. It means focusing upon enforcement upon the reduction of illegal drugs including challenging in a holistic way very powerful criminal organizations and the shape the demand side in consuming societies. It means focusing upon minimizing the harm that illegal drugs cause people and aware that prevention and treatment of addiction a powerful brain disease is formidable. It's essential. It's complicated. It's an evolving science and involving field. And it means sustaining very effective and active diplomacy that leverages our partners, governments, international organization, NGOs, societal groups. And that cooperation is being tested as we'll hear today continuously especially as we see new synthetic psychoactive substances coming onto illegal markets. Our four speakers bring quite different perspectives and we'll hear about that. We are at a moment of big debates here and beyond around what international policy should look like into the future. We are in the midst of multiple transitions. We're in the lead up to the 2016 UN Special Session on Drug Policy, the first such gathering in 18 years. And historical debate is underway. It's evolving about the existing three UN drug control conventions which has been the basis for decades for international action. And the question that's on the table is what if any changes and reforms are warranted? What should they be? What is the evidentiary basis? And what's the political will that's going to be required to move those forwards? We'll hear from Ambassador Brownfield how these issues are being debated out in the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs which just met in Vienna in March which we'll meet at a high level in 2015. And that effort, the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs will be essential, will be pivotal in shaping the debate at the 2016 Special Session. There's a parallel effort underway that we'll hear more about too from Michelle and from Ruth. The Global Commission on Drug Policy which is an independent initiative founded in 2011 with active support of many prominent former heads of state and others. President Cardozo, George Schultz, former Secretary of State and Secretary of Treasury Volker, Kofi Annan and others. And these two very active members of that commission, Michelle and Ruth, we'll talk to us more about how they are pressing for a rethinking of approaches to criminalization and pressing for new models of legal regulation in greater emphasis on public health treatment and prevention approaches. Obviously this is a period of very big change. We're at the end of a decade of efforts to control opium and heroin in Afghanistan. We are at the end of a remarkable period of achievement on HIV AIDS which points us now, as we think about the ends of AIDS, to reaching those special populations including injection drug users who remain populations of high incidence in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. And as I said earlier, we're in a period in our own country of a transformation happening, the legalization in Colorado and Washington and a great deal of turbulence and uncertainty around what happens in this next phase. So all of these things come together here in some fashion. And it makes really for a quite dynamic moment in debate that we're in the midst of. So please join me in welcoming Ambassador Brownfield to kick us off here today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Steve. Dr. Brownfield. Ladies and gentlemen of CSIS and others who are friends here today. Good morning, it is in fact a pleasure to be with you all here this morning. My first visit, I think, formally and officially, is CSIS. And y'all are doing all right. As Dr. Morrison suggested, if you flip it however you wish, ladies and gentlemen, as Dr. Morrison kind of suggested, if some of you have been asleep for the last 15 or 16 months, you may have missed this. But there is a fairly significant debate, a national debate, a global debate that is going on right now in terms of the national debate, the national debate, right now in terms of drug policy and how to deal with a matter of dangerous drugs in our future. Here in the United States of America, two states have voted in referendum to legalize one of those drugs, cannabis. And 18 more states plus the District of Columbia permit some degree of medical use of marijuana. You no doubt are hoping to hear my opinion on this. You will not. Because I do not have any greater right to an opinion on our domestic drug policy than does anyone else in this room. And you will articulate your views, I am quite confident in a few minutes as we begin some dialogue with you. I am however, that person that you, the American taxpayers, pay to manage our international engagement and participation in this issue. And that field I will address in a few brief minutes of comments this morning. Ladies and gents, there are three international drug conventions that guide the international community in this matter. The 1961 single convention, the 1971 expanded convention and the 1988 convention against drug trafficking. The United States of America is a party to each of these conventions and has, unusually in the last 25 years, ratified each of these three United Nations conventions. May I tell you, as a law school graduate, although not a lawyer, these are actually quite well drafted conventions. They are very precise. They are very tight. The lawyers in the room who agreed on the text did a fine lawyerly job in drafting these conventions. They have a precise number identified of drugs on their prescribed annexes. And I might note that marijuana appears in the annex of the most tightly restricted of the drugs. Their authorization for medical use of drugs and particularly marijuana is very tightly prescribed and controlled in the conventions. And the conventions explicitly and expressly hold national governments responsible for the conduct, if you will, of the entire nation including provincial, state, municipal, or local governments that form part of the larger nation. The conventions create two international oversight bodies. The policy making body, as Dr. Morrison just mentioned is the Commission on Narcotic Drugs or the CND. And the organization that is designated that responsible for ensuring compliance and adjudicating interpretations of the conventions is the International Narcotics Control Board or INCB. The INCB, let me start my story, has been taking a position on the United States of America and its position on marijuana for several years. They have expressed views for more than three years on those states which now permit medical use of marijuana. And beginning last year began to express views on two states, Washington State and Colorado which through referenda legalized the use of marijuana for recreational purposes. In October of last year I had the pleasure of joining a small U.S. delegation which went to Vienna to articulate the U.S. government's case as to why in our judgment we were in compliance with our international treaty obligations even in light of the decisions by Washington State and Colorado to legalize the cultivation of marijuana, sale, possession and consumption of marijuana. Our argument went something like this. The purpose of the conventions is to accomplish the objective of controlling, discouraging, reducing the use of potentially dangerous drugs. The conventions we argued allowed a substantial amount of discretion to individual governments on how they would accomplish those objectives. The conventions specifically offered by way of exceptions those countries whose constitutions required a different approach to the objectives to allow them to continue with their constitutions and not have to change their constitutions in order to comply with the conventions. And our argument went it was the right of the United States government to determine how best to use its limited and in some cases scarce law enforcement and criminal justice resources to best accomplish the objectives of the conventions. And therefore we said we were in compliance with the conventions. About a month ago the INCB annual report for 2013 begged to differ reached a different conclusion and while they were not definitive in their judgment because technically they were judging the year 2013 prior to the moment when the Colorado and Washington state rules went into effect they nevertheless assessed that the argument by the United States government was not sound. That said, I have read article 2 of the United States Constitution I am aware of who I report to and may I go a step further I'm actually quite comfortable with our argument I actually think we are correct and we will continue to articulate this position. About four weeks ago slightly less I believe when narcotic drugs held its annual meeting or conference the CND I had the pleasure of being the co-head of the U.S. delegation to that meeting as well. While we had many engagements a great deal of discussions at least three public presentations I would argue that we were trying to develop international consensus on some basic points that could guide the United Nations and the international community as it wrestles with the issue of adjustments and changes to drug strategy drug policy and drug conventions in the years ahead. I laid out four basic pillars in my conversation pillar number one and the integrity of the conventions. The three conventions. Why? First they've been around for about 50 years and speaking as a dinosaur who has been in this business for 35 years while it is possible to correct an old it's a lot easier to adjust it than to completely create a new one. I would draw your attention to the fact that our governing document here in the United States of America is about 225 years old and we have somehow found a way to move from 1787 to 2014 without having to trash the original and create a new one. So pillar number one integrity of the conventions. Pillar number two flexible interpretation. If it is a living document they are living documents. Living means you are allowed to adjust your interpretation as the world changes around you. The world in 1961 was a different place from the world in 2014 and we the governments and member states of the UN system should be permitted to interpret with that degree of flexibility as we move into this century. Third pillar or principle tolerating different national strategies or policies. There are 194 countries represented in the United Nations today. Each one has its own approach its realities its strategies and policies to deal with drugs and the consequences of those drugs. Some degree of national differentiation in policy has to be accepted and even permitted. And the fourth pillar was in a sense the argument that whatever your position might be on legalization all 194 governments should agree that those transnational criminal organizations who traffic in the substance for the purpose of making money corrupting organizations laundering proceeds in an illicit manner through financial systems of other governments should be resisted combatted and ideally eliminated. Integrity of the conventions flexibility of interpretation toleration of different national policies and combating the organized crimes may I suggest to you that my experience in Vienna four weeks ago suggested that there is good hope for consensus built around those four pillars allowing among the 194 different governments those that feel strongly that the policy should be very strict and prohibitionist and those at the other side who argue with equal strength that in fact we should substantially lessen the criminal penalties and restrictions on drug use and drug consumption that I saw prospects for being able to get all of those countries to unite under those four basic pillars. That's my international presentation ladies and gents. Now one of you no doubt is saying to himself well what would be the best policy for the United States of America to pursue that would give me the strongest chance for actually building or holding some degree of international consensus on these matters. Thank you for asking that question and I will in fact provide you an answer to the fact door get to the question of so what about Washington state and Colorado. Ladies and gentlemen here domestically there are two issues at play call them issues, call them principles call them areas of disagreement I don't care what we call them there are two things out there to use the technical term and what you're about to hear reflects to a very considerable extent from the President of the United States and the Attorney General of the United States which puts me in my opinion in pretty good company. Principle number one marijuana is a harmful substance it is toxic it is addictive or if you prefer to argue about addiction let's say it produces dependency but it does have if used in sufficient quantities and sufficient regularity the impact of requiring the same human to use the same substance we want, we society, the communities, the nation the planet want a policy that not only does not encourage but discourages its use if we can discourage the use and consumption of alcohol nicotine caffeine, fatty foods and sugary drinks surely we can have the same degree of societal interest in discouraging the use of cannabis and marijuana second principle it is not in our nation's interest or quite frankly I assume any nation's interest to populate its prisons and to overburden its criminal justice system with large numbers of people for the simple offense of possession or consumption of marijuana it is not just a criminal justice problem it is also a public health problem and if we can somehow develop consensus in this nation and perhaps in the larger world that brings these two principles to bear principle number one cannabis is harmful we want policies rules, laws processes and procedures that discourage its use and principle number two we do not wish to fill our prisons with people whose soul offense is that of consuming the stuff ladies and gentlemen as you're and not particularly well paid representative who tries to articulate the US position in the international community on drug policy may I suggest to you that that approach those two principles give me something I can work with in the international field please don't ask me to negotiate a divine consensus among 194 governments on the planet for new conventions I will tell you in advance I am not smart enough I am not passionate enough I am not patient enough to deliver that sort of consensus I seriously doubt I can even deliver you 67 members of the United States Senate to ratify any new convention we have a different position and a different picture than I do in terms of how swiftly and with lightning like the treaties of today are moving through the United States Congress my own view is I myself cannot offer you a great deal of optimism on that front we are in a time of opportunity and transition transition produces change and change can be good but it is good ladies and gentlemen only if we do it right and I look forward to working with you and hearing from you on just how we can do it right thank you very much Dr. M back to you thank you just grab a seat if you guys can come up can we get some water up on the table please I'll just go over here right over here oh ok I think I'll take I think you should I'll sit in the middle why don't you sit right here I'll sit it up right here I insist we'll have some water here in a moment I've asked Michelle Ruth and Kevin to to think ahead we had a general idea of what Ambassador Brownfield was going to present to us today I asked each of them to come prepared with few minutes of remarks around how they from where they each operate and think about these matters what would they add to this conversation and I'm going to ask Michelle to kick things off I'll ask Ruth Dreyfus to follow and then we'll come in with Kevin so Michelle thanks Steve are we switched on yes ok good morning everyone thank you Ambassador Brownfield for those introductory remarks I must say being here as a member with Ruth of this global commission on drug policy our view that the debate is around whether the conventions should be renegotiated and I did not expect that debate to happen in Vienna a few weeks ago what I was expecting in Vienna and what I did not see happen in Vienna was what was originally the purpose of that meeting which was a review of the progress in the in what people call the world's drug problem and I haven't heard that review and I haven't heard from you an opinion on whether the US considers that globally we with the policies we currently have have been successful or not in dealing with the world drug problem so the way the global commission is looking at this is not about the frame the conventions I think none of us really believes as you said yourself that you know it's worth entering the debate of renegotiating a convention we believe that there is enough space within the conventions for flexibility as you also said but we believe the important thing is to ask ourselves are our current drug policies which in most countries of the world are based on repressive law enforcement and prohibition law enforcement is that the right way to do two years ago three years ago now the global commission published its first report which everyone can get outside the room called the war on drugs was lost and that report was really about our view our analysis that what happened in the last 40 years despite the original intentions of the convention is an over interpretation of the conventions towards a repressive law enforcement view that has been predominating in most countries as the basis of our policies and what has happened in the last 40 years is that actually consumption of drugs has increased drugs have become cheaper, more available now with the synthetic drugs more drugs are coming on the market every day that anyone would be able to control and to add to the annexes on the list and repression has been as harmful if not even more harmful than the drugs themselves so that's our starting point from there we have been coming with a number of thoughts that we can develop in the conversation and the first coming from me with the background that I received so provided to you on what I have been doing so far in my life the first is that people's health is to come as the highest priority why do we sign a convention why do we elaborate and design a policy as a government to protect the people's well-being and health and what has happened is that harsh penalties and repressive policies have had tremendous negative impact on people's health the fear of arrest the fear of incarceration is driving people who inject drugs underground as you said Steve in Eastern Europe and Central Asia in actually throughout Asia and now in many places in Africa as we discover people are driven underground they inject in unsafe conditions and that drives a huge HIV epidemic one in five of the estimated 13 to 15 million people who inject drugs worldwide are infected with HIV it drives a huge epidemic of hepatitis C a silent epidemic and again I'll not go on with publicity for our reports here but you'll find two reports of the Global Commission one called how the criminalization of drug use fuels the global HIV pandemic the other is on the Hep C pandemic and also not to forget tuberculosis if you are a person injecting drugs and you're incarcerated today in Eastern Europe let's say in the Russian Federation or Ukraine your chances of acquiring TB is like 26 times higher than in the general population our second point after let's say people's health should come first is stop incarceration and stop dealing with this issue through criminal justice so that's what people call decriminalization or deep penalization but basically what it means is do not is remove sanctions under criminal law with the optional possibility of going to administrative sanctions but remove that from criminal law and as you said yourself reduce incarceration there are figures that you know better than I do about the US of you know up to 50% or so people incarcerated for reasons that somehow are linked to drug offenses and very often minor drug offenses and actually use or possession whereas the big traffickers those who I agree we need to combat fiercely you know somehow escape the system our next point would be about regulation and replace prohibition with regulation because prohibition just doesn't work it didn't work with alcohol as you know well in the US regulation is somehow something that enables societies to more effective control of what we're doing so I'm not saying we're very good worldwide at fighting tobacco or alcohol we're even worse but at least we know what we do when we regulate and some of the experiments that will happen in Colorado in Washington state with marijuana will teach us I think good lessons about where the weaknesses can be but where the advantages can also be of regulation so our starting point is that prohibition just doesn't work doesn't prevent people from using drugs and has not and prohibition has actually led to repressive policies that themselves have been harmful so prohibition does not reduce consumption but we believe prevention does and I'm sure you'll agree with that we're all agree with this that we're insufficiently scaling up prevention interventions and finally where I would certainly agree with you is that one size doesn't fit all so that it isn't that the global commission is proposing a universal new model we're just saying again let's open an honest debate not an ideologically charged debate let's open an honest debate the policies that we have been pursuing in the way we have been interpreting or over interpreting the original intention of the conventions have led to have not led to a decrease in drug consumption they have led to repressive policies that have had huge negative consequence on the health of people and on the safety and well-being of people think of the violence in Latin and Central America so we have to question whether that was the right way of doing things and that's what we're doing with the global commission thank you well I have little to add to the presentation of our aims in the global commission I just want to stress how happy I was to listen to you ambassador in Vienna and here I think there is a big change in the United States of America and on the international scene for many many years the US were really for a strong interpretation of the convention without possibilities of flexibilities and I can speak about that because as a country as a responsible for public health in a country that was pioneering new methods of treatment prevention and a farm reduction I had quite often the impression that not only Vienna not only the international bodies but behind them the US were very critical about what we did in Switzerland so just let me tell some words about my experience as former minister of public health responsible for the implementation of the drug laws in my country which is a chance to have the minister of health being in charge with that and coordinating all the activities and not the ministry of law enforcement is a chance it was a big chance at the beginning when we were really confronted with a peak in the HIV-AIDS epidemics and we were also confronted with an explosion of a way of consumption among people who were totally disintegrated not marginalized discriminated and gathering in some places where the police had pushed them in order to protect other neighborhoods from the harm of their presence so we had really to enter directly to make to accept the visibility of the drug issue into a strong contact close contact with the people not only the person who are consuming drugs with drug addicts or people who are just consuming in a non-problematic way or not yet problematic way perhaps these substances mainly heroin but also the contact with the neighborhood the contact with the families we were really asked by the environment to help the people not to die to help the people not to be contaminated with little diseases and that was the obligation we had coming from the ground coming from the concerned people to adapt our policy our public health policy but also the collaboration between all the people all the stakeholders of the drug policy including the police, the justice and the city administration and so on in addressing the problem so we had to develop for instance a larger scale of treatment treatment only aimed for abstention are not possible for many people many people are just not able to follow or not able to stay clean after having had such a treatment and being in greater danger after the treatment than before because their body and their attitude has changed and they cannot afford to have such strong and often of very bad quality drugs they find in the black market so we had to extend the substitution therapy even still supporting also abstinence oriented treatment that's sure but to have a large amount of people in substitution therapy I know that some of your former drugs are came to Switzerland very interested in our metadone programs in that time General McAfrey but we had also to to look if some people who were not complying with the offer we could the services we could offer needed other kind of treatment and so we introduced heroin prescription legal heroin prescription for the people a very small number of people but people who were just not being able to follow other treatments and the results monitored by a scientific team a mixed scientific team for many years this results were very encouraging for the health point of view but also from the criminal point of view the petty criminality drug users often have to to follow to be able to buy the substance they need and the reintegration coming back to places where they could live normally coming back even to job integration and we knew that we couldn't touch all the people even if in Switzerland I think it's a good figure we have between 70 and 80% of people consuming drugs being in treatment I think it's one of the highest figure in the world because of this large spectrum of services offered but we knew that we cannot touch all the people so you have to protect also the people who are not in access in a treatment program and this was the development of harm reduction I know that in the US perhaps you have a little bit another comprehension of the world of the world harm reduction we have in Europe in Europe it's really a whole battery a whole spectrum of services that help the people to protect themselves it includes clean syringes clean needles but also for instance safe consumption room where the people can come with drugs they bought in the street I mean on the black market but where they can consume in a safe environment and have perhaps the first contact with people working on the social and health dimension to help them make perhaps they are free to do so but offering first possibilities of steps toward treatment and a better life so this whole spectrum was still criticized in Vienna still criticized as something that was too brave to be honest if I can say so but I think it makes cool I mean it's an example even considering that we could really give scientific evidence about the result of this new policy I think it helped to change also the position in many other countries in Europe now other countries are pioneering new models of decriminalization Switzerland is not pioneering this field but Switzerland had never incarceration for just for consumer and possession for their own consumption but I mean we have now other countries in Europe that are making experiences that are interesting and I would say in contradiction with some of your papers I read I think Netherlands and Portugal decriminalizing the consumption of all substances in Portugal of cannabis in Netherlands has seen no increase in the consumption no greater public health problems and no greater criminalistic problems in the country I think Portugal for instance could correct some perhaps explosion at the beginning of the dictatorship of consumption and really regulate now the relationship between the states and consumers inclusive recreational consumers offering them a whole range of services they can accept but without criminalization of what they are doing now just let me finish with one remark I think everybody can agree with your four pillars they are very reasonable and the necessity is not only to agree on these pillars but to allow a real discussion about the advantage and the failure of the system and this is still lacking as Michel said and it was it was a delusion in Vienna to see that the people who wanted really an open discussion were just blocked by those who didn't want to chat to who really wanted to continue to taboos to have a taboo on this topic and I think our duty as member of the Global Commission is really to open this debate because I cannot accept one point in one direction but when you say that tolerating different national strategies is a necessity I'm very happy to hear that from your mouse because I think it will open possibilities and flexibilities but if this means that in some countries people who are using drugs have no access to treatment people who are in certain countries are forced for constraint treatment with labor force forced labor activities for instance and with brutal brutal ways of bringing them off their consumption if I see that people in prison have no possibility to protect them knowing that I would say quite in each prison you cannot guarantee that there will not be drugs and you have to protect the inmates more than you protect the people outside the prison because you are more responsible for them and more responsible for giving them the means to protect themselves if I see such kind of application of the convention if I see that in some countries pain relief medicine are not ordered by the country you know the country just to announce all the imports they are doing on the substances on the list and if I see that some countries are just not ordering not importing the means they need to help people against awful pains cancer people ill people and so on I think that there is a real harm produced by a strong harsh interpretation of the convention and in this sense I cannot accept and tolerate that national strategies are violating basic human rights and they do thank you thank you for being so patient thank you for inviting me and Madam President thank you for your remarks Michelle Ambassador Brownfield and everyone here I appreciate everyone being here I think we have multiple points actually more than might be let on in terms of opiate substitution therapy in terms of access to health in terms of denouncing barbaric practices done in the name of treatment like the labor camps we are seeing in Southeast Asia like the treatment of drug users in former Soviet countries and Eastern Europe and certainly in the idea of scaling up prevention and recovery services especially when you do a survey especially community-based prevention versus just scare tactics of few countries around the world are employing community-based prevention I think we agree with those things where I find trouble is that I think in this debate often we do not have a clarity of terms that we use so very general terms are thrown out and used and they are interpreted by different people to mean different things at different times and it really muddles the debate so and this is drug policy is a difficult thing it's not anything that I think can be characterized by a term on a bumper sticker whether that term is just say no a war on drugs or whether that term is legalized or regulated to use that language instead I think it's much more nuanced than that and as a result I don't think we do a service when we throw around some of these terms and they're used by very different people so the example of alternatives when we talk about alternatives I think we need to be very specific about what we mean and what geographic areas when we're speaking about alternatives and I was happy to hear some of the specifics today but when I read the global commission report I found it very hard to disagree with the premise of 80 to 90 percent of the report which talked about how we need a health oriented drug policy how people whose only crime is using drugs and not being incarcerated how we need to focus on prevention and essential harm reduction services the problem is often times we will sort of many people agree with that and then we will jump to a what I would call drastic conclusion as a result of that which I think it's very drastic and extreme especially in the U.S. context as we see the commercialization of cannabis being rolled out day by day in Colorado and soon Washington will say that the result of those problems or the logical conclusion of those problems should be regulation or legalization when I think that we at least owe it to ourselves to try less drastic measures because once we go and fully implement legalization I think it's going to be very difficult to turn back and when we see global prevalence as you mentioned Michelle of alcohol and tobacco alcohol basically being used by seven times as many people in the world as cannabis tobacco cigarettes by about five times as many people in the world as cannabis let alone the other illicit drugs which would be something like on the order of ten times as much tobacco users as cocaine users and about twenty times as much for alcohol versus the other drugs like heroin I think that that would be very dangerous to make that logical sort of overstep I guess an overreach when it comes to terms like decriminalization I even think we should be very clear about what terms and I appreciate you bringing that up because I think you know at least with the US which are the statistics I'm most familiar with when we look at the people who are in prison whether it's state or federal and just to clarify the statistics we have about half of people in federal prison are there for drug charges the overwhelming majority in federal prison for drug trafficking over 99% in fact for drug trafficking on the federal side state side is where we have more people with lower level offenses and we have about 1.4 million but even state side an analysis done in the Clinton administration redone in the Bush administration and we redid it in the Obama administration found it very difficult to identify more than 6 or 7% of people in state prison whose only crime was low level drug possession not just marijuana drug possession that by far the majority had been diverted to treatment or something like drug court which actually they did enter the criminal justice system as a result of being in a drug court but then they quickly exited it as a result of having that kind of treatment with accountability and actually if you look at most of the people who are in drug court and actually most people who are in the US system with drug charges they are in there with other charges it wasn't as if they were a perfect angel and the only thing they did that the law enforcement person frisked them and found a little bit of cocaine and they were now sent to the minimum they often had other charges and crimes either as a result of trying to finance their habit or as a result of being under the influence of drugs that accompanied that charge to even sort of alert the police in the first place I think that so I think we have to really look very closely now that's very different in the US and this leads to my other point than around the world when we look at geographic variation I mean certainly in you know disturbingly you know in a large amount of countries we do have people as you mentioned you name some of them but in certain parts of Eastern Europe in Russia in Southeast Asia where we do have people essentially rotting away unfortunately with addictions that are left untreated with spreading a disease within those systems and I think we need to come down against those in the strongest and the harshest possible way and I join you with that but I would I think we need to be careful to confuse some of the world with another you know furthermore this distortion of terms or I think sort of overuse of certain terms I mean I saw that when we the organization of American states did their report with someone of the Americas of which I was I think one of 30 people on the writing team for that and of course we mentioned things like regulation and what was going on in Uruguay I mean we wouldn't want to ignore a significant development that's happening around the world in the US but you know the headlines and the way that certain lobbying groups ran with that if you didn't read the report you would think that it was essentially advocating for global legalization and you know when Ambassador Simons talked about the report in Vienna some of us were at that side event many of those special interest groups were you know livid that at the end of the event the word legalization wasn't mentioned once by the organization of American states by Ambassador Simons or others and yet that was the way that certain groups I think tried to spin that I've seen that spin also in the discussion of Portugal I mean when I look at Portugal pre what they did I see a relatively homogeneous small country that never really arrested users before just like Switzerland and the Netherlands didn't now changing formally to a policy of essentially if you have a small amount of drugs you are just get off scott free necessarily you are in front of a three person social worker panel that includes a lawyer and they determine what happens next and you know we've seen I think mixed things as a result of that I have you know the euro stat which comes from EMCCDA and other groups have shown an increase in use they've also shown decrease in some of the things that were happy that there were decreases and like drug related deaths I think it's difficult even to tie that policy change with anything I think it's difficult either way and I caution people on my side of the fence on this not to you know sort of over interpret what happened in Portugal as you know unmitigated disaster worst thing ever and I think but I think folks on the other side should probably be more cautionary in their statements and I guess that leads me to saying that I don't think that the choices and I this is my is what I believe for cannabis in the US but also all drugs worldwide but our choices between a repressive war on drugs I agree has played itself out in nefarious ways around the world for the last 40 years and legalization or regulation again I just I think that there's much more in the middle to deal with a problem that is tied with security issues that's tied with you know education and the level of education that a state provides its citizens that's tied with the level of health care that a state provides its citizens the level of security that a state provides its citizens economic opportunities the idea that something as right so that we can you know for example remove the cartels that are of course now involved in multiple things way beyond drugs or or as a way to increase health when I think we have much better ways to increase health I think is a false argument and then I guess finally just to end one on the cannabis issue as it was brought up I think what's going on in Uruguay is very interesting I don't think it's really relevant for the US just in terms of the way that our American style commercialization tends to play itself differently I mean you might have seen the Washington Post last week that talked about the new you know national cannabis industry lobbyists who's here full time I don't think there was a lobbyist in Switzerland for heroin assisted treatment that was you know lobbying you madam president and getting paid half a million dollars a year to do so but in the US we tend to want to do these things and that's you know should be expected here and I think what should further be expected is the further commercialization and if instead and I reject the term that this is an experiment because when you have an experiment you have something that is controlled that you're looking closely at the data that you have data systems in place that you analyze the data and then you learn from there what we're doing in the US is a thousand miles an hour across the country being fueled by big money and people whose commercial interests it is to increase addiction it wasn't in the Swiss government's interest to increase addiction so that you had more people come for heroin assisted therapy unfortunately here it isn't the interest of people to increase addiction because that's how you increase profits of course we know that the tobacco and alcohol industry thrive off of addiction because a small amount of people consume a vast majority of the volume of those substances and it's the reason why when you during your US visit you go to Las Vegas and you ask you know you look at the person you know betting a hundred blackjack table I guarantee that person does not have the free penthouse suite at the top of the you know on the on the top floor that instead the person that you know risks his life savings you know every other day on the craps table that person probably does have the penthouse suite because it's in the interest of the gambling community to you know and the businesses to increase and encourage unhealthy use encourage so when Ambassador Brownfield talks about policies that discourage which I think all of us are in agreement we want policies that discourage use that discourage risk use that discourage needle sharing all these things that unfortunately the US style of the way we're going and you can see the earlier reports for yourself in Colorado is not down a path of trying to discourage use that instead we have we have companies who will live off and thrive off of encouraging use the exact opposite so and I guess finally just in terms of this global I do agree Ambassador there's a global debate I think we have to be though sincere about who that debate is among because if you look at the public opinion polling even in Uruguay I mean even where they are going for marijuana legalization even after a year of a government sponsored campaign to convince people that this was the right way to go and there was a media campaign to that regard still in that country I think it's something like at least 65% of people opposing the policy when you look at Guatemala, Colombia, Mexico other countries that you know many of us here in think tanks in DC think well yes logically they want to stop the violence so they want legalization when you look at those public opinion polls we're seeing upwards of 70 80% opposition of even cannabis legalization so I think the debate is among elites not among people in those countries and I and I would hope that you know that elites and former presidents and others who are talking about alternatives that we can truly have a debate about alternatives as opposed to something that I think is a false dichotomy of status quo drug users rot in prison HIV hepatitis C levels off the wall you know labor camps forced prison labor or something like legalization and regulation I think we owe it to ourselves to have a clearer debate and to discuss the alternatives in the middle that don't put us towards the path of the global disaster that is alcohol and tobacco legalization and the reason there's not a global consensus to reverse those policies is simply they have been ingrained in our culture globally for a very very long time predates the drug conventions certainly predates all of us up here so we sort of let that one go I would hope that we wouldn't you know let the cocaine issue go or even the cannabis issue go that instead we can have a more intelligent discussion of what we're going to do today. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank all of you. I'm going to come back to Ambassador Brownfield for his thoughts and then we're going to open the floor to you and when we do that some of my colleagues will bring a microphone to you and what we'll do is bundle together three or four comments at a time I know Kevin needs to depart at about 11 o'clock. I'm going to take a moment to talk about the agreement around fundamental principles, pragmatism being smart moving ahead in a very complicated picture balancing off quite complex competing priorities and pressures. I also heard an appeal for a more critical review in the process and the C and D process for more open debate for more precision of terms of what we're going to do in the future. Be careful. Have your brain open, your eyes open as we move ahead and think about what some of the consequences are in terms of politics and commercial interests and public health. Ambassador Brownfield would you care to give us some of your thoughts and reactions to this and then we'll move to hear from the audience. Not much to add, mostly because I want to give Kevin a chance to take a break. Here is what I think we have both heard and what I think is the reality in the world today. We are talking about a debate or a discussion that has been going on in some way shape or form for 40 years. It has been dominated for most of those 40 years by the two extremes. At one extreme we have those that I would call the strict prohibitionists who say do not give an inch or a centimeter on this particular issue up to and including it that way. At the other extreme we have the equally simplistic in my personal opinion legalizers who say if we just legalize the stuff the entire problem will go away, voila, just like that. Legalize on Monday, it's all gone by Tuesday and I often wonder and thank God that that's not their approach on murder, homicide, robbery and other such crime. Now my argument and I believe what we're kind of hearing although several may not wish to associate is we've got to find the sweet spot, the target, somewhere in between those two extremes. We are in fact moving the debate away from this simplistic debate of the last 20 or 30 years. We have to legalize, we have to prohibit into figuring what would be the appropriate ways to proceed. The world is changing medicine, science, criminal justice, all of these things have changed since 1961. Of course we're going to review what we're doing. Of course we're going to review what is the best way to accomplish the objectives that we as communities and societies wish to advance. I not only am not uncomfortable with where we are in the United States today, as well as where a number of other governments are, I think it's actually a very good idea. If I might quote the President of the United States when he left the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena in 2012, I think he said and I think I quote he welcomed the debate. He actually didn't say we agree with those who are taking these positions, but he said we welcomed the debate. This is actually what helps us move in the right direction. But Kevin says it exactly right. And it's a different way of saying what I said at the end of my presentation. Folks change, change is good but let's make sure it is good change. It does no one any good if at the end of the day in October to produce change, we produce an outcome that is actually as bad as if not worse than what we have right now. That's my pitch back to you, Dr. Thank you. So let's take some comments. We're going to bundle together several. Why don't we come if you could come down Chris to the front. We have Keith and Martin here and then in the front row and please identify yourself be very succinct to one intervention please. Not multiple because we're going to, we'll go Keith, second gentleman here there's a woman here in the front. We'll do four and then we'll come back and then we'll do another cycle. Thank you. Keith. Thanks Dr. Martin from the consortium of Universities for Global Health. Thank you so much for your wonderful comments. The science is there. No better place to look at it than the National Institutes for Health NIDA and Dr. Nora Volkow. The scientific evidence is there. So Ambassador Brownfield, you asked us for a solution, something you can pursue that's consistent with the convention and the objective of the U.S. Administration. Dealing with addiction if you were to be able to take an exemption and to be able to adopt something like the North American Opiate Management Initiative which is a drug substitution program in combination with dealing with the social determinants of health because you know these are complex problems. Use that as an experiment. Use that as an example in some of the key areas in the U.S. and you will show the leadership and the effect that you're trying to achieve. Thank you. Thank you. Howard Wildridge, retired detective and co-founder of LEAP law enforcement against prohibition. I just want to say that my experience as a street cop, the war on drugs prohibition has been most destructive, dysfunctional and immoral policy since slavery in Jim Crow. To Mr. Brownfield, Ambassador Brownfield's point the only thing legalization does, sir, is in the violence and crime associated with drug trade. It has nothing to do with drug abuse and use, but it will destroy the drug trade as Al Capone was destroyed in 1933. My concern is for children. Every day in this country we have millions of children in gangs. The government reports a solid one million are employed today as drug dealers. Every day seven, eight or so are shot dead. This is shameful. This is immoral. Does anyone on the panel, especially Mr. Sabat, have any strategies on how to eliminate this job option for our children who are getting shot and killed every day at a maximum and a minimum, joining a gang involved in illegal behavior and, last, does anybody know any benefits to Mexico on American drug policy? How is it helping Mexico? Thank you. Yes, please. Thank you. Suthaw, Katka, community anti-drug coalitions in America. Just two points that I'd like to discuss. The first one is, yes, definitely this is a public health problem, but it's very difficult to deny that when people beat their wives domestic violence, people getting killed in car accidents because they're driving under the influence of drugs, that it's not also a criminal justice system. So the question is, how do you adequately deal with this in both systems? Not try to pretend that somehow this is not also a criminal justice issue. And the second thing has to do with youth and social norms. We're seeing in Colorado and Washington the perception of risk actually throughout our whole country among youth is declining because of the debate about legalization and medical marijuana kids do not think it's dangerous, and we're starting to see the rates go up, but we've actually seen gigantic declines in the perceptions of risk and social disapproval, which, if that happens worldwide, I think we are going to see these issues turn into alcohol and tobacco. Thank you. Right behind you, if you could just hand it to the gentleman right behind you. Hi, Dan Riffle with the marijuana policy project. We drafted Colorado's legalization law in question for Dr. Sebet. President Obama was recently asked about the relative harms of marijuana and alcohol and said that marijuana is no more harmful than alcohol. Project CM immediately put out a statement criticizing the president. Nevertheless, you've said before that marijuana is in fact less harmful. Former Congressman Kennedy said that marijuana is more harmful than alcohol. And then later that week that he agrees with the president that alcohol is more dangerous, so I'm curious if you could explain why even though marijuana is less toxic, less addictive, and not associated with violent behavior, it's inappropriate for the president and other thought leaders to acknowledge that. Can we just hold, let's take one more down here, gentlemen. Chris, if you wouldn't mind. Then we'll come back to our speakers and I'm going to let these are directed specifically to you and we are under some time pressures. Yes, sir. My name is Gregorio Meras, I'm correspondent for Televisa News Network and I would like to ask Ambassador Brownfield what he thinks what is his assessment of the drug on the war on drugs in Mexico. In the last six years, we have seen an amazing number of people dying because of that. Do you think these war on drugs helped somehow or just allow the cartels to get more power because we have not seen before these firepower of the cartels until the last six years I mean during the Calderón administration did it help somehow to control the war on drugs or it was just a waste of money. On the other hand, what do you think is going to be the message of the legalization of the drugs of the marijuana in Colorado in Washington state for Mexico who has been suffering terrible violence due to this problem. Thank you, sir. Kevin. So a couple things, sorry, I'm just requesting my Uber to take me to the airport so I wasn't texting and I wasn't planning any questions in the audience. I think those are all good valid concerns. I'll just take a few. I think one on the drug and the gang problem that you rightly point out, Howard, I think clearly doesn't have not done enough with the issue of economic opportunities, education opportunities health care opportunities in those communities where you are more likely to be a member of a gang or a street gang and in fact when we look at the alcohol model if we're trying to fix problems in urban areas I think that would be the last model we would ever want to look at when we see that for example there are eight times as many liquor stores in poor communities that are more popular in this country than there are in upper class white communities and that's simply because you go after vulnerable populations who are vulnerable to increased use and addiction and don't have the resources to write a $50,000 check to the Betty Ford treatment center if there's a problem and so I would never want to use the alcohol model for anything especially if I was interested in social justice and public health. Secondly, even under a legally regulated market, this may get more to what you're saying you unless you're going to make for example the price of crack cocaine the cost of production and legal for anyone of any age which would mean a 10 year old hit of crack would be about 3.5 to 5 cents to produce which you don't want to do so unless you're going to do that which you're of course not saying you are still going to have that underground market the question is how do we better how do we reduce that underground market and manage it a lot of communities actually have done it through innovative law enforcement practices like the drug market initiative that's been over a couple dozen cities in this country that essentially does offer those job opportunities to low level dealers rather than incarceration gives them a second chance it has not displaced crime but it's actually reduced crime and it has at least driven the dealing that has been going on to an indoor environment as opposed to a more publicly not just outdoor environment but I think we have to get to the fundamental issues in those areas and the idea that well we can just go ahead and legalize it and then therefore these gangs so we won't have the million people in gangs etc I don't think that's the case at all because you're going to increase demand under legalization the price is going to drop dramatically and you're still going to have an underground market to sell to the people that we're not willing to sell to in a legal market i.e. those under 21 or those that have you know problems with illicit drugs on the issue of alcohol versus marijuana I mean I get that consistency because it's you know to say well wait a minute beer causes me to be violent and marijuana causes me to be sort of chill so why are we encouraging beer use versus marijuana I really think that that is a major logical fallacy to essentially say my right arm is broken i.e. alcohol policy and we got to live with it and therefore I want to break my left arm in order to be consistent and I think that's the sort of akin to the argument of alcohol policies here to stay and so well you know what we might as well treat pot like alcohol I think that's it's totally the wrong way to go especially when we see the damage of legal alcohol and the damage of an illicit commercial industry I also think in terms of specifically the president's remarks and also congressman Kennedy's and my own remarks on this is way too simplistic to say something like alcohol is less dangerous or more dangerous than marijuana etc when it comes to violence we would agree alcohol when it comes to liver damage we would agree alcohol or when it comes to lung damage when it comes to IQ no one's brought up you know the impacts on a country that increases heavy chronic use among young people which is undoubtedly what commercialization and legalization will do so when you look at school performance lung issues marijuana is worse when you look at driving alcohol triples your risk of a car crash and marijuana doubles it we want to encourage you to use marijuana because it doubles it as opposed to triples it it means we want to discourage the use of both of those substances and it's too late to try and prohibit alcohol that's not going to happen K Street we look at the alcohol lobby seven lobbyists for every member of the representatives tobacco with every single anti-tobacco prohibition short of full prohibition on the books one in four Americans still smoke cigarettes it still kills 480,000 people in the United States even though I don't even know where you can legally smoke these days I mean does anybody know where you can actually you can't smoke at your own home because you're going to be kicked out by your spouse so even with that and it's true that we haven't arrested people for tobacco and we've seen the decline but we've seen the decline because of the public stigma against tobacco use the major stigma that all people even smokers have disdain for themselves these days and their habit we have the opposite for marijuana tobacco has been legal forever in this country and we've only seen the reduction in the last 10 to 15 years even though it's been legal for a while we've seen the reduction because of the stigma the problem with legalization and commercialization is it breaks down that stigma it normalizes use it commercializes use and therefore we have the opposite scenario for marijuana and that's why I think you see the increases I think we want to bring this back and I'm sorry I have to leave thank you so much for joining us I know you have to pull out Michelle and Ruth you know we obviously can pull this debate into an exclusively American centric debate because it is such a fascinating and lively and urgent one and thank you so much for putting the spotlight on there and those in our audience who are experts in this area as well let's pull back for a moment and ask Michelle and Ruth to comment to some of these issues on the broader plane thank you Steve also for bringing this to a broader scope because that's where we come in as global commission we certainly don't want to interfere with the internal US debate and we also don't want the debate to be only about marijuana and again from my own perspective as now the Secretary General's envoy on AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia my concern is that this is the region of the world where the AIDS epidemic now is growing the fastest and that's strongly associated with the negative effect of inappropriate drug policies I'd like to make two comments on the round of questions and comments that came first I'd like to acknowledge what you said sir on science and evidence base and I do not think that countries many countries in the world have really sit down talk to the science listen to the evidence and then base their policies on that evidence for the first time in Vienna what happened and this is to the credit of UNOGC and the CNG organizers is that they brought together a number of scientists in the day proceeding the CNG meeting Nora Volkov chaired one of the panels on the state of the art in demand reduction and I chaired I was privileged to chair the second group on the state of the art on harm reduction and we could, Nora and I could both report to the CNG to the high level segment in the plenary that I thought on the moment had a fairly strong impact and that was somehow a strong message from the UN the debates should be based on scientific evidence but at the end of the day if you look at the final resolution that came out of Vienna even the word harm reduction is not mentioned once so the distance that we still have to cover between what the science tells us and between what is in the policy and then what's actually implemented in the ground is huge but I do certainly welcome very much your comment my second point is that I'm not sure I actually understand where Stephen is going I understand what he says we should not do not go too much to the left not go too much to the right but what is he suggesting and when he says tobacco I don't want the disaster of alcohol and tobacco my question is then what is it that he wants does he think we should go back to prohibition I don't think what's going wrong with alcohol is because alcohol is regulated it's just because regulation is not effective enough and not properly done but let's think of tobacco I do agree that there is a stigma now in the public opinion on tobacco that wasn't there 20 years ago but I would argue that it is actually effective regulation it is the countries coming together in Geneva and signing a global tobacco framework a few years ago it is regulation that doesn't allow you to sell tobacco to people below the age of whatever 16 or 18 depending on countries it is the possibility now to go to harm reduction and treat your nicotine addiction with e-cigarettes without having the harm of the other substances in cigarettes that actually generate lung cancers so I think if we have significant results in the fight against tobacco worldwide it's precisely because it is regulated and I don't see why we couldn't achieve similar effects including capturing as you said the illegal markets by going to by expanding on regulation other drugs so I I'm sorry Stephen has left I feel uncomfortable Kevin has left I feel uncomfortable talking about what he said but I am not sure I understand where he was going thank you Ambassador you told before that for 40 years there was a battle between two extremist positions I do not agree with that because the hegemonic position was prohibition the people who were advocating for a regulated market were not really vocal and they couldn't be heard in the world community even your country didn't allow this real discussion between the two extremes as you call them and in this sense what we want is really a debate to take place that the first the first element the second element is we are not for regulation like this as the solution that we should introduce before Tuesday you told before no we want to experiment different model of regulation and possibly I don't know possibly the model of Colorado which is far away from the model of Uruguay will show some great difficulties possibly but the model of Uruguay is perhaps too restrictive we spoke with the people from Uruguay and Vienna each consumer has to be registered every plant has to be registered they invented little genetic markers to know from where the plant is coming I mean they are making a real system of control from the isolate plant to the isolate consumers perhaps it's too much perhaps Colorado is too too little control and perhaps some measures has to be taken really on the level of pricing for instance to take another experience because alcohol is a real problem we had a huge invasion in Switzerland and in Europe generally with alcopops 15 years ago I think or 20 years ago alcopops were really made to tease the use mixture very soft alcohol what could we do we couldn't ban but we could with taxes have the price being so high that no young people could buy it and it disappeared from the market totally in Switzerland you cannot buy now this kind of products because they are just not accessible, affordable I mean when I saw some picture in Colorado candies or candies like products I was shocked I think these products must be either banned or have such prices that they are in any case not accessible for use but this is the problem of the regulation we have to develop different models for instance now in Switzerland many cities are thinking about what is called it's a too nice name can I be social club with registered consumers and registered farmers to bring it to the customer in a limited quantity we have to try all that having prescription of heroin is a kind of regulation we have now medical heroin in Switzerland in Germany in the Netherlands and so on it's a kind, it's one model of a regulation of a market and we could take quite a great number of very addict people of the market we couldn't eliminate totally the market but we take the most captive consumers out of the black market so I think these are may I just, yes I think it's very important the fight against the commercialization as Kevin stressed before I think is another battle I mean it's a battle of civilization what is, why is big business so important in this country but it has nothing to do with directly with with the issue of regulation now I know that we didn't answer this lady and if you allow just to say yes there are crimes linked or difficulties linked with the consumption like with alcohol but you will not prohibit alcohol you will prohibit people to drive when they have alcohol in their blood I mean we have to find the same way to avoid crimes made under the influence of substance as we do with alcohol and other substances thank you we're getting near to the end of our time I'd like to turn to master there was serious questions around Mexico and the cartels that I think he's best equipped to address and I'd like to ask him also to offer us some thoughts on obviously any of the other subjects that were raised including children which was highlighted in one of the questions looking ahead to 2016 in the UN special session if you could give us some idea of what are you hoping for what would be the best outcome of that high level session at the UN General Assembly in 2016 and then we can get we can close with Michelle and Ruth sharing with us their thoughts on what the best outcome might look like Ambassador Brownfield thank you fair enough and ladies and gentlemen Paris to thought that I would ever take an adversarial posture with the former president of the Swiss Confederation but I will offer you a fact in September of 1970 I entered university in the United States of America the very first individual that I encountered as I was walking into registration was a gentleman who represented an organization called normal the national organization for reform of marijuana laws and he handed me a flyer and it called for legalization of marijuana so I repeat this debate has been going on for more than 40 years I agree with President Dreyfus that one side was dominating the debate but you will never convince this boy at least that there has not been a fairly emphatic debate on this issue at least in this country since September of 1970 may I offer a couple of general observations and then get back to what President Dreyfus has suggested one is the range of questions and our comments demonstrate once again there is not consensus on this issue I mean that's the reason why we're having a debate there are in fact a number of models out they're including different models for different countries which gets to my pillar number three we have to accept that and by the way ladies and gentlemen accepting it does mean some countries are going to take a far more rigid and approach to this countries perhaps feel that they're in the process of an addiction crisis are likely to take a different posture than countries that are not that is what I mean at least when I say pillar number three we have to tolerate that different countries will pursue different policies second if I might Mexico itself and I do agree I have one who should respond to the question of Mexico in some ways I would suggest that the Mexico that we began to work with in a systematic and a consensus driven bilateral way in 2006-2007 represented exactly that part of this problem that I think there is consensus that we want to combat and resist and that is large enormously powerful violent criminal organizations who at least in this instance had grown to such an extent that in certain areas they represented a challenge to the very authority of the government or the state to control and govern that particular part of earth whether it was a town a city or a state and the Mexico effort as was enshrined in the Merida initiative was an effort whereby the United States of America offered $1 for every $13 provided by the government of Mexico to address the problem on four specific points one was to combat the criminal organizations themselves that was very law enforcement and security focused second was to build stronger institutions law enforcement prosecutors correction systems whatever constitutes eventually the arsenal the toolbox of the government and the state third to build a more modern and effective border initially between the United States and Mexico but as we moved into the new administration other borders such as the southern border of Mexico as well and fourth and finally because no one has touched this general issue yet build stronger communities economic social healthcare roads infrastructure on the logical premise that if you are going to ask a community to resist the efforts of criminal organizations to corrupt their institutions by offering them more money than they might otherwise make they have to have a reason to pay a stake in their own future which finally allows me to go to the last of the points before I get to 2016 and that is my complete and utter agreement that while obviously this has become a matter of public health and healthcare as much as criminal justice it is not one to the exclusion of the other and I'm going to offer a very quick and yet personal story to give you a sense of the law of unintended consequences and I will do this carefully about a year ago I was summoned to jury duty something that I get to do every two to three years even in my current position the trial it was a criminal trial to which I had been summoned was a trial against an individual and the charges against him were attempted homicide firearms violations conspiracy to traffic and sell more than 500 kilos cocaine and a possession charge I am pleased to report that due to my position I was dismissed from jury duty it seemed that both sides concluded that they did not want me sitting on the jury I tracked the case just for kicks in the subsequent months ladies and gentlemen the individual was finally convicted do you know what he was convicted for? possession why? because despite the fact that this potential juror for reasons who suspected this guy really was bad news all of the other charges fell apart due to evidence problems or witnesses that for whatever reason could not convince the twelve individuals that were eventually selected for this jury that they were telling the truth and what did he get nailed for? he got nailed for the simplest charge to make on planet earth that they found a quantity of marijuana I believe it was and may have been cocaine in his physical possession so this is one of the reasons why a bunch of prosecutors have been pushing back in the United States against some of these proposals to drive down the potential sentences for those who are convicted for these charges because they say be careful at the end of the day what you may be doing is taking away our last opportunity to at least put some of these people in isolation for a while or alternatively to use the pressure of a sentence to actually get them to turn on those higher up in the drug trafficking organization 2016 we are referring ladies and gentlemen to the special session of the UN General Assembly which has been approved or a resolution for which was passed last year to do a special session of the General Assembly on the drug issue and the drug policy where are we right now first I think we actually are in a broader debate and a broader discussion on this issue than we have ever been in the history of this planet second we are still wrestling with where the preparations for this event will be centered will they be centered in Vienna the location of the United Nations specifically designated drug control drug management agencies will they be centered in New York that's basically the choice and the thought for New York is that that is where your political leadership is located within the United Nations my guess is we will eventually and as usual split the difference in some way some preparations will occur in Vienna they will then be passed to New York for the political touch up in terms of what will happen what will come out of this process I have laid out for you what I hope will be the overarching umbrella within which we then have this debate respect the integrity of the three conventions permit flexibility of interpretation acknowledge and recognize that there will be different models and policies pursued by different governments and finally agree that the actual transnational criminal organizations must still be proscribed by whatever means that the states and the international community can bring to bear now within that there is plenty of room for debate and I believe we're hearing much of that debate right here and right now I welcome it I am your international operator for those of you who are citizens of the United States of America I won't tell you what to decide I will ask you please decide something that I actually can deliver in the international community thank you guys so much Michelle and Ruth you have the final words here well thank you very much and first thank you all of you for attending this session for your comments and thank you Steve for hosting us today thank you Ambassador Brownfield for taking part in this discussion and thank you also as Ruth said before for your openness and I also wouldn't disagree with your four pillars in any way and I wouldn't wish the audience to think that the global commission is coming with a strong request for renegotiation of the conventions what I would like to see is first in between now and the 2016 session a debate but not a debate between again preconceived ideologies or arguments of view as it's happening too often but a debate on the evidence and the question at it at the country regional and global level what we have done what have we achieved after years of certain policies and when people or someone one of us in the debate or in the audience was saying earlier maybe if we were could be even getting worse than somewhere worse than where we are getting now my question is are we really pleased with what we have achieved when in fact we failed to reduce drugs and when we have witnessed a huge AIDS hepatitis C, TB epidemic huge violence in Latin and Central America and huge harm so that's what we call an open debate at the global commission not one more debate of the elites with whatever preconceived ideas they have and second when it comes to the outcome I agree with again with the pillars you're advocating for Ambassador Brownfield I agree that the risk there is a risk with allowing the flexibilities that some countries would actually use the flexibilities to be extremely rigid and to remain rigid but then I would argue that's not what I want as an outcome I want an outcome that provides guidance and principles around which countries should review their own policies in the light of what the scientific evidence tells us and I'm skeptical about Vienna leading on the process when Vienna is even incapable of giving these two words harm reduction when we at the global commission and we in Europe in general really talk about C harm reduction and the strong incentive to implement harm reduction as a desirable outcome of the 2016 debate and to us harm reduction is not only reduction of harm reduction in the two-three interventions that prevent HIV or hepatitis C transmission OST and SP ART it is harm reduction in a broader sense it is having these policies based on scientific evidence really reducing the harm to the individual to the community to the society of both drug use and of inappropriate drug policies based on aggressive law enforcement prohibition law enforcement so in summary it is going for those flexibilities but coming out of 2016 with a set of principles and of guidances just as the WHO, UNODC and UNA's jointly recommend that countries implement a set of harm reduction interventions for medical purposes I could see a set of similar harm reduction interventions in a broader again social beyond just medical perspective coming out of the debate as strong UN guidance and then if there is such a guidance then we will hear anymore or we shouldn't hear anymore from countries that would say we are against methadone because methadone in our country is illegal or we wouldn't hear anymore I'm sorry to quote the country here Japan come in Vienna and say we do not believe in harm reduction so that's where I see the outcome a science driven evidence driven debate and then guidance and principles that would allow people to review their policies and then have them evolve and shift within the flexibility that you suggest. Thank you. Just two elements to add to Michel on one side I recognize the knowledge accumulated in Vienna and the UNODC and they will play an important role in the preparation of this special session but they have focused for so many years mainly on repression law and order that they have in part and they recognize it themselves and the director Fedotov had the very very strong words also on that that the public health and the well being of the people were partly lost so I mean we have to enlarge the view and not only to have UNODC participating in this preparation but also other agencies of the UN family WHO human rights and many others development and so on because they have other experience about the impact of the drug policy in their field of activities and we want also the civil society associated more in the preparation and at the special session I was in the last one and the last one finished with a declaration saying world without drug is possible no it's our aim and we can do it that was for 18 years so I hope a really realistic view of the topic developed there in New York at this special session and I would say the second thing is really one perhaps detail but I want to add it here I don't think that we can renegotiate renegotiate now the conventions and I agree with you with the fourth principle that we need and we have another commission on crime also working in Vienna that we need to co-alize all the country in the fight against the globalized organized crime but I wish something evidence based the list of substances isn't evidence based putting, having nothing about alcohol and tobacco but having cannabis to harmful drugs is not evidence based the whole 50 years of discussion about substances was so ideological was so often linked with the consumption of marginal groups in society of foreigners of workers, of low level people so that the drugs were chosen and put in the scholar not for evidence not for pharmacological evidence but for social arguments and this should be renegotiated and this is very difficult because in the system we had till now new substances are arriving every week on the market and we have to review all this list of substances inside the convention because we have a credibility gap a huge credibility gap when we don't put the real relationship between the different substances and these differences will allow us to find regulation models for instance that will be different for the different substances thank you Ambassador Brownfield, President Dreyfus Ambassador Kazakshin, thank you so much please join me thank you to all really terrific session, thank you so much we're adjourned thank you very much