HRF’s War on Drugs Research Program is a Center for Law and Democracy project that investigates the human rights consequences of the global war on drugs. The first report, which launched in August 2019, looks at the history and costs of prohibition from an international perspective and traces the human rights impact of this global mandate in three countries along the drug supply chain: Colombia, Mexico, and the United States. It finds that prohibition has not only failed to reduce drug consumption and abuse, but has yielded terrible human rights costs, and even presents a threat to democracy.
As a part of this project, HRF has also hosted a panel at the Oslo Freedom Forum to advance discussion about drug policy and raise awareness about prohibition’s negative consequences:
• 2018 Panel: “The Human Cost of the War on Drugs” (video)
To learn more about human rights and the war on drugs, check out these Oslo Freedom Forum talks:
•Laila Haidari (Afghanistan, 2019)
•Chito Gascon (Philippines, 2018)
•Marcela Turati Muñoz (Mexico, 2014)