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Chair’s Report – Economic and Social
Question of the Impact of Illicit Drugs on Sustainable
Development and the Achievement of the Millennium
Development Goals
Basic Information:
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the world's time-bound and quantified
targets for addressing extreme poverty in its many dimensions-income poverty, hunger,
disease, lack of adequate shelter, and exclusion-while promoting gender equality,
education, and environmental sustainability
Sustainable development: economic development that is conducted without depletion of
natural resources.
Illicit drugs are those that are illegal to make, sell, or use. They include: cocaine,
amphetamines, heroin etc.
The Issue:
The relationship between psychotropic or “mind/mood altering” drugs and sustainable
development is rooted in the contribution that the legal and illegal drug trade makes to a
set of barriers to development, including:
(1) interpersonal crime and community violence;
(2) the corruption of public servants and the disintegration of social institutions;
(3) the emergence of new or enhanced health problems;
(4) the lowering of worker productivity;
(5) the ensnarement of youth in drug distribution and away from productive education or
employment;
(6) the skewing of economies to drug production and money laundering.
Illicit drugs impact on development in a number of ways. Drug use contributes to
diminished health, leading to higher healthcare costs and decreased earning at the
population level. This is most noticeable in the area of HIV/AIDS where the sharing of
needles not only spreads HIV infection among people who inject drugs but also serves to
fuel the broader spread of the epidemic.
The negative consequences of drug abuse affect not only individuals who abuse drugs
but also their families and friends, various businesses, and government resources.
Although many of these effects cannot be quantified, ONDCP recently reported that in
2002, the economic cost of drug abuse to the United States was $180.9 billion. (National
Drug Threat Assessment 2006)
In the past decade, there has been significant growth in the illicit trafficking of drugs.
Trafficking in these and other commodities is generally characterized by high levels of
organization and the presence of strong criminal groups and networks. While such
activities existed in the past, both the scale and the geographic scope of the current
challenge are unprecedented. In 2009, the value of illicit trade around the globe was
estimated at US$1.3 trillion and is increasing. It has also recognized that “despite
continuing increased efforts by States, relevant organizations, civil society and nongovernmental organizations, the world drug problem…undermines socio-economic and
political stability and sustainable development.” (General Assembly of the UN)
UN Action:
Several international conventions on drug control, and more recently the UN Convention
against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) constitute the key framework for a
strategic response. Such instruments call upon State Parties to take “into account the
negative effects of organized crime on society in general, in particular on sustainable
development”, and “to alleviate the factors that make persons, especially women and
children, vulnerable to trafficking, such as poverty, underdevelopment and lack of equal
opportunity.”
Because of the increasing toll of drugs, both licit and illicit, in the developing world, and
that fact that existing drug policy extensively shapes this toll, it would seem that the time
has come for considering new alternatives and approaches that might be more effective
in curbing the negative effects of the global drug trade. Some alternative measures have
been suggested or attempted in recent years, including:
(1) offering drug crop farmers alternative livelihoods by providing them with skills and
opportunities to engage in other economic activities, opportunities that are capable of
raising their standard of living significantly beyond the meager levels usually available in
growing drug crops;
(2) harm reduction efforts that lower the health risk among those who choose to use drugs,
avoid demonizing drugs users, and insure their inclusion as full societal members;
(3) effectively controlling the legal drug industry, both in terms of promotional efforts and
product diversion. To this list, we must add the critical need for controlling demand by
addressing the inequitable social and economic conditions that lead to compensatory
drug use in the first place and the health benefits that could be derived from prioritizing
prevention and treatment over interdiction.
UN agencies and member states have made some progress in recent years in
addressing these tensions, but there is a long way to go to find an integrated
approach to drug control that maximizes the protection of health and human rights,
and the promotion of social and economic development.