Remarks by John P. Walters
Director, United States National Drug Control Policy
United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs
March 7, 2005
Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you Executive Director Costa.
We recognize that reducing the drug problem requires united international efforts because drug use, addiction, and trafficking do not respect borders; indeed, they exploit divisions among our nations.
We are painfully aware that drug use in one country draws trafficking and stimulates transit routes through others, just as drug supply draws users and the addicted across communities and across national borders. No nation with more drug demand or more drug supply fails to put its neighbors at risk.
And we have also learned, painfully, that many of our communities have, at times, sought to deny, ignore, or wall-off their drug problem, thereby allowing it to continue and to grow, at the peril of us all.
In short, we know that we must face and reduce this risk
together—that is why our nations are gathered here.
The United States currently spends $3.5 billion a year on drug abuse treatment and research, with an additional $2 billion on prevention. Every year—and this does not include the additional funds spent by state and local governments and private individuals that are extensive but not systematically reported. We have learned a lot from that investment in research and practice. We have learned that addiction is a fundamental disease of the brain, according to the best medical science. It is a disease caused by repeated drug use. Science and extensive experience also tell us, however, that drug use is both a preventable behavior and one that we can intervene against and stop.
The undeniable character of drug use and addiction as a contagion means that we can interrupt the vectors of contagion, and stop the spread of the disease, as we treat those afflicted and restore them to health and acceptance in our communities. Under a regimen of effective treatment, lives can be restored in fullness and productive vigor. Some see this as the miracle of recovery. It is certainly the miracle of successful treatment of a deadly disease. From the perspective of both public health and responsible leadership, we must intervene with prevention and treatment for the disease of addiction.
Instead of turning away from our responsibilities, instead of acquiescing or practicing appeasement with addiction, we have fashioned drug policies that work. What are these policies? First, effective drug treatment resources that lead to full recovery and re-integration in society for millions.
Second, we implement effective prevention campaigns, turning young people away from a life of drugs at moments when they are most vulnerable. We have supported drug testing in schools, as a means of deterring the spread of drug use, and as a means of non-punitively identifying and getting help for those early in dependency. We understand that addiction is a disease and we know it is time to use public health measures such as confidential testing and, where necessary, interventions and treatments, as we have done so successfully with other childhood diseases. Watching silently while others suffer in denial with the self-destructive disease of addiction is wrong.
Third, we use the criminal justice system as an ally in achieving treatment referral and recovery, enlisting the power of the courts to effect supervised treatment rather than jail. This successful mode of intervention and restoration relies on "compassionate coercion" for those who are not dangerous, violent criminals.
Fourth, we have waged a battle against those who produce and traffic in drugs, the narco-terrorists who destroy nations and the street-corner pushers who destroy neighborhoods and families. We support more international supply control efforts than any other nation and we work with growing success with almost every country on earth.
The United States still faces tough challenges from drug use and addiction, but from our current efforts, we have seen much progress. At a time when many nations are realizing with alarm that their young people are sliding into greater danger, youth drug use is strikingly down in the United States.
According to our most recent national surveys, we have experienced a significant reduction in youth drug use over the last three years of this administration—past month cannabis use rates falling 18 percent, overall use of any drug down 17 percent. These are declines that we haven't seen in a decade. Strikingly, youth use of methamphetamine fell fully 25 percent. Even more compelling is the decline of MDMA (Ecstasy), which plummeted by 60 percent between 2001 and 2004.
We are reducing the drug problem by a balanced strategy of demand reduction and supply reduction. We know as individual nations and as the current international agreements document, we know as allied nations, how to reduce much of this problem—we need to join together with leadership and resources to do what we know must be done. In our global community, we also know that we cannot act alone and achieve as much as we can when working in concert. And we know from painful and continuing experiences that when we individually and collectively weaken our efforts against drug use, addiction, and trafficking, we are all at greater risk. The unity we seek need not be crafted anew; it already exists, in the form of promises and mutual pledges that we have already made to each other.
Each nation in attendance at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) has made commitments, the meaning of which is clear. Drug use is governed by international agreements that direct signatories on how to regulate and respond to this problem. Three instruments known collectively as the U.N. Drug Conventions (the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs as amended in 1972, the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances, and the 1988 Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) carry the force of law. There is no question that the overwhelming majority of our nations support these agreements. The overwhelming majority of nations believe we must observe these Conventions and reject actions that are incompatible with them. For instance, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), the guardian of our Conventions, has consistently rejected programs such as government-approved or supported injection rooms, government fostering or sustaining injection drug use, and the dispensing of drugs for anything other than medical or scientific research purposes, consistent with standards for ethical treatment of human subjects. The question in not whether our pledges, based on sound principles, are supported—I think we all know that they are by an acknowledged majority. The question is whether we will extend our unity and move forward.
These Conventions and agreements are our safeguard, protecting against the epidemic of drug use. Yet some contend that these very Conventions and agreements are somehow an impediment to efforts addressing another global crisis, the spread of HIV/AIDS and other blood-borne pathogens (such as Hepatitis C). This charge is wrong—the Conventions are a bulwark against the public health tragedy of blood-borne diseases and the public health tragedy of drug use and addiction.
Continued drug use is a fundamental cause of the dangers we face from blood-borne diseases. Those who drafted these Conventions, those who committed our nations to these Conventions, and we who are charged to keep faith with these Conventions are linked by a fundamental truth: stopping drug use is a paramount medical and humanitarian responsibility.
We have also responded to the second crisis of epidemic disease, and at a level unmatched in the world community. The United States accepts its global responsibility in the fight against HIV/AIDS, as well as other global infectious diseases.
In his 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush proclaimed an unprecedented commitment of U.S. resources to fight HIV/AIDS. His Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief commits $15 billion over the next five years to fight the disease internationally. In 2004 alone, the U.S. spent $2.4 billion to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria abroad, a sum far beyond that committed by any other nation. The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief assists more than 100 countries throughout the world. Among these countries are 15 that receive special emphasis and account for more than half of the world's infected population, with $865 million programmed for these countries in 2004, and a planned $9 billion for these countries alone still forthcoming.
The Emergency Plan's ambitious five-year goals for these 15 countries are supporting lifesaving anti-retroviral therapies for 2 million people, averting infection of 7 million people, and supporting care for 10 million people affected and infected with HIV/AIDS, including orphans and vulnerable children.
This is the largest commitment ever by a single nation toward an international health initiative. The U.S. contributions to the global AIDS emergency continue to be greater than those of all other donor governments combined. Specifically, and in addition to the new resources committed to the Emergency Plan for AIDS, the U.S. has pledged almost $2 billion to the Global AIDS Fund through 2008—far more than any other nation.
We must recognize that our fight against illegal drugs is part of our fight against HIV/AIDS. It is essential, precisely because of the way that HIV/AIDS and other pathogens are transmitted, that we intensify our commitment to stopping drug use. Injection drug use is a major risk factor in HIV/AIDS transmission, through direct blood contamination by means of injection equipment, as well as through the high-risk behaviors of injection drug users. And the threat of drug use increasing HIV/AIDS infection is by no means solely attributable to injection risk. Transmission of HIV/AIDS in the context of ingesting "crystal" methamphetamine, in the context of pervasive intoxication with cannabis, in the context of crack and powder cocaine use, all show the conjunction of compromised judgement, impaired health, and high-risk sexual behaviors that lead to Sexually-Transmitted Infections (STI).
In each case, the most powerful response is to reduce the prevalence of drug use, thereby reducing not only the social harms that attend drug use, but as well, the devastating harm found within the drugs themselves.
The path our nations support in the Conventions to which we have bound ourselves is the right one. Let us here use that unity to move farther and faster against our common threats. President Bush has recently called for the United States to engage the world in a renewed campaign to realize the core principles of our nation and of the United Nations: human rights, human dignity, and human freedom. When we push back against illegal drug use, we help establish these fundamental principles more securely for all our nations.
Thank you.
