 GOOD MORNING EVERYBODY! GOOD MORNING PORTO! I HOPE YOU'RE AWAKE! My name is Ann Fordham. I'm the Executive Director of the International Drug Policy Consortium and it gives me great pleasure to be the Chair for this morning's plenary session on Drug Policy the Push for Justice with my beautiful, inspiring and diverse panelist speakers who I'm honoured to be introducing to you today. The fight for justice within drug policy is very critical, as we heard yesterday from the High Commissioner for Human Rights. There is still much work to do. There is an unmitigated human rights disaster that still goes on in the name of the war on drugs in so many parts of the world. Today, we will hear from our speakers about the important work that they are doing on this front to continue the fight for social justice and human rights in drug policy. Without further ado, I'm going to introduce our first speaker. I'm very honoured to introduce Dr Mary Chinnery Hesse. She's a dear friend and a mentor of mine. Dr Chinnery Hesse is a retired international civil servant who served as the UN resident coordinator and UNDP resident representative in several countries. She was the first African woman to be appointed to that position and she was appointed as the first woman deputy director of the international labour organisation with the rank of undersecretary general of the UN. She's also served as chief advisor to the president of the Republic of Ghana. She is currently chancellor at the University of Ghana and serves as a friend to the Union Panel of the Wise and is a commissioner of the West African Commission on Drugs and also is a dear and beloved board member of the IDPC. Mary, you have the floor. Good morning. What a pleasure to see so many people coming to listen to me speak. And such a special group. I'm so happy to have the opportunity to present the voice of Africa, which generally tends to be rather muted and to be speaking to people really who have the third dimension. We're not talking to academics only. We are also talking to people who face situations on a daily basis and therefore who are likely to give more relevant suggestions and make proposals which affect the life of people. And the emphasis on human rights I think is appropriate to have such an audience who will bring in the third dimension. So I'm just saying that I feel so honoured to be here and I will start by thanking those who have brought me here. I very much will thank Harm Reduction International but also the local NGO, Amdesh, who have made all this possible. My information is that this happens every other year and it's the biggest assembly. I'm overwhelmed that I'm part of it and thank you so much for having me here. But somebody would ask why it's important for the voice of Africa and in my case I'll say West Africa to be heard when we sit in this manner. I think the subject matter itself lends itself to global treatment. And I do not think any part of the world should be left out. I think the message is stronger and more relevant when everybody hangs together and get themselves on the same track and to create the critical mass which basically will make a difference. In this particular area where we believe that the more the world appears to be doing, the more we appear to be going back. And because of that to work out new strategies which is the challenge we have now, new strategies which will move the debate forward and lead to positive action in this regard. But West Africa is peculiar. I say this because we have realized that there's a lot of international criminal activity. Our borders are porous, our coastlines are under patrolled and our government institutions are vulnerable. Our countries are used as transitment points between the production centres in Latin America and Asia and consumer markets in Europe and the United States. Countries face three interrelated dangers from illegal drug trafficking in West Africa. First there's a threat from drug profits funding corruption which can corrode state institutions and undermine good governance and the rule of law. You know we've had a situation like in Guinea-Bissau where the president of the country sitting president was executed in front of his family, in fact chopped up like kebab in front of his family because of the situation and the impact on governance of these issues. So for us we cannot sweep these matters under the carpet. That's why we have the commission set up. Then there's a risk that drug traffickers may link up with other criminal elements or worse extremist groups that may be trying to infiltrate the regime. We currently have that situation in the Sahel and then finally there is the harmful impact on the health and social cohesion of local communities caused by growing drug commission, the consumption. You know my dear brother who passed on, Kofiana was a very wise man and therefore looking at the situation, mooted the idea of the West African commission on drugs. Of course we very sad that he passed on. I personally was very, I felt wounded because he was my childhood friend. We grew up together. We were in the United Nations together and he became a true brother. Soon after he died my husband also passed on. So last year was a horrible year for me but at least Kofi has a legacy. When I look around this room I find that some of the ideas which he pushed were truly relevant to humanity. I don't know if I can impose on you Madam Chair to ask that we have a minute silence to honour my brother and my friend Kofiana. Just for a minute if you get on your feet and let us say. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. I'm sorry to impose on you in this manner but I think it's necessary because his voice really helped in this regard. And he was a great communicator. He managed to put things very simply, very quietly but for all to comprehend. And what he said then was, I believe that drugs have destroyed many lives. But wrong government policies have destroyed many more. And we have to keep this in mind as we work here today. But let me now very quickly turn on to the West African Commission on Drugs itself. It's regionally led and it's an independent group. I think we have something on the, the selection of people to serve on the commission took into account our situation in West Africa. People play big man, you know, so they will only give audience to people who they think are like themselves. And I think Kofi Annan had the right idea by selecting people who could open doors and who could not be written off by presidents they tried to talk about. It's the peculiarity of our region and I think the commissioners selected fit that mode. But in addition he also brought in young people. He brought in artists, people who could relate to the young in society and so on and that has been very effective. Some of us are grandchildren think we should not be talking at all. But they listen to people who they sing with together, dance the new steps, you know. If you challenge me I will do that. But I'm sure they will laugh. They will not be impressed. So I'm just trying to say the commission was very well constituted and we buckled down to carry out research relevant to our environment. Long and short of it was we brought out findings and recommendations which we have put out. The report was published in 2014 and that gave a holistic overview of the impact of drug trafficking and consumption on governance, security, development and public health in West Africa. I'll just because of time constraints you know I'll just highlight very few of these findings. We found that it is still mostly uses small time dealers and drug couriers who are arrested and imprisoned. In this way the law is applied. The law as it exists today is applied disproportionately to the poor, the uneducated and the vulnerable while the powerful and well connected slip through the enforcement net. In other words the small fry is caught while the big fish swim free. But I don't think this is peculiar to our situation. The situation in a lot of countries and therefore there is still work to be done in terms of the law in most parts of the world. So we're really going to tackle the problems and not punish the weak. Just not punish them as the people who can get that easily and who cannot buy the way out. So at the beginning of our work we focus on the threats of drug trafficking to governance as I have mentioned before to security and to development in our region. During the course of our work however we were more and more struck by the problems of drug consumption with particular reference to other aspects of life in our region. In Africa in general and in West Africa particularly some cultural and religious beliefs tend to reinforce the stigma of people who use drugs. I don't know whether that is the situation in many parts of the world but in my country Ghana for example cannabis is translated in indigenous languages as Obonsam Tower which means the devil's tobacco. This tends to deepen the demonization of the substance. Consequently culturally people who use drugs in my country are identified as users of a devilish substance with all that entails. And they tend to be even more ostracised than in other places as a result because you brought in this religious sort of spiritual color to the whole thing is very very bad. And in South Africa for example a study conducted reveals that people are more likely to offer help to alcohol users but more likely to suggest aggressive measures for drug users. This shows that morality and ethics are heavily involved in how drug users are perceived. The picture of young people in West Africa today is that of a most at risk population when compared to their peers in other parts of the world. View from any perspective employment literacy life expectancy exposure to harm from social conflict opportunity to achieve potentials. Because the West African adolescent or young child is at a disadvantage. Sadly drug use and the state's response to it adds another layer to the problems already being encountered by youth and their families on a daily basis. And now the religious drug laws are in desperate need of reform we found out. It is obvious that to reduce the harm caused by the illegal drug trade governments must modify the handling of drug users. And just laws can prevent people from accessing the services they need to prevent or treat HIV and people who use drugs need help and care not punishment. This is something we've been pushing a lot in our region you know and that is the main message from the new model drug law for West Africa. Which was launched on 11 September in Dhaka Senegal. And this model drug law aims to guide policy makers in the region on how to better frame the drug laws. Our current situation which stigmatizes and penalizes drug users. That's pushing them to the fringes of society or locking them up in ever increasing numbers puts enormous pressure on the already overstretched criminal justice system. There is as well absence of effective treatment and harm reduction services. And the West African Commission on drugs strongly recommends the adoption of a drug treatment policy with minimum standards across the region. These are the things we have been working at. I realize I don't have too much time so I'm going to I don't know how to do this. The nicer part of my presentation is in the last part so I will push and stop me. The West African Commission also concludes that drug use should not be a matter of criminal justice. Drug laws need to be reformed to decriminalize drug use and low level non-violent drug offenses. The protection of the security, health, human rights and well-being of all people we have emphasized needs to be the central goal. And I guess there will be enough discussed of this. One of our recommendations and I think we need a slide here is to develop reform harmonized drug laws on the basis of existing and emerging minimum standards and pursue the criminalization of drug use and low level non-violent drug offenses. And in order to sensitize policy makers, we've been going around a lot. It's not a law we expect to be put on the shelf. We wanted to be a living document to influence law makers. Because sometimes when it's just talk, nothing changes. But we spent a lot of time trying to sensitize those who make a difference in what goes on the law books. So that you change the nature and face of the law as it is today and as we think is being implemented in a manner which is not very useful or in the interest of human rights. And therefore we continue to go around countries at very high level. We send people like President Obasanjo and so on to join the sensitization effort. And I'm happy to say that we are making a difference. In my country Ghana, for example, in spite of the stigma and the religious aspects and so on, we actually have a drug law now in Parliament which is being influenced by what we have brought out within the context of the West African Commission on Drugs. We discovered that not many governments knew how to tackle things. And one of the greatest achievements of the Commission is bringing out a model drug law which we think should act as a template as countries try to modify the law. Make sure that we have looked at what is happening globally and selected the best things and ensure that we have laws which then will be extremely progressive. We want West Africa to be ahead of the pack in this regard. Very soon you will be learning from us. I'm really going to try to stop talking. My speech will be put out later. But I want to say that in a measured way we're trying to balance criminal justice and health aspects of drug consumption by introducing thresholds. If caught with the equivalent amount of what somebody would use in 10 days, a person will have those drugs confiscated but will not be arrested and sent to jail. This is what we are proposing. I want to say that Africa stands by to study from all of you. So this for me is going to be a very, very important meeting for ourselves as well. I also want to just say that we are using our regional organization, ECOWAS, very much in trying to promote what we've put in there and it's working. We're moving to the continental level. In fact we have already moved there but in Africa sometimes it's more difficult to work from the top to the bottom. So we're trying to motivate the regional organizations to get more involved since we appear to have started something. I'm happy to state that I personally tried to be involved in actions being taken by within the context of eastern and southern Africa to introduce some of the ideas we've started here. I wish I could be talking to you more but every minute I feel guilty. I should not be doing this to earn my friend and therefore I will stop. I hope that this will be distributed so that you get a space there. Thanks for your attention. Thank you so much for having me.