Day 17 - Invest in justice

Criminalising drugs doesn’t decrease drug use or sales, and it doesn’t help to reduce drug-related harms. However, these punitive laws result in human rights violations, the spread of infectious diseases like HIV and hepatitis, and the avoidable loss of life. Drug laws also fuel stigma and discrimination, especially towards people from marginalised communities.

We know responses to drugs that prioritise community, health, and justice are effective and save public funds. Yet governments and donors around the world continue to waste vast amounts of money on funding punitive responses to drugs, with little transparency or accountability. This goes on even while life-saving programmes remain grossly underfunded.

We spend over $100 billion on drug-related law enforcement each year, but at last count, investments in harm-reduction services for people who use drugs in low- and middle-income countries was only $131 million. This means that we spend over 750 times more on punitive responses to drugs than we do on life-saving services and programmes. Harm reduction programmes are just one example of what we could fund if we divested from the unjust drug war.

Globally, drug laws have upheld racist and colonial structures and resulted in poor health for people and communities. Geopolitical powers exert their influence over drug policy in low- and middle-income countries through funding. A striking example of this phenomenon is how wealthy countries earmark money from their development aid budgets to fund the global war on drugs.

International aid is supposed to help end poverty and support development, not cause harm. These essential principles are regularly repeated by donors in their own publications and statements. However, wealthy countries spent close to $1 billion of aid funding the global war on drugs in the decade between 2012 and 2021. This aid money was used in a way that runs counter to development aims: to train and fund police operations that support increased citizen surveillance, drive up drug-related arrests of the most vulnerable people, and increase the numbers of people detained.

Harm Reduction International’s campaign calls on governments and donors to divest from the unjust drug war and invest in programmes that prioritise community, health and justice.

Watch the video to learn more.