Washington, Oct. 22 (IANS): The UN's drug strategy of the past 10 years has been a failure, according to a report by the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), which has called for a major rethinking of global policy on illegal narcotics.
The report released on Sunday claimed that UN efforts to eliminate the illegal drug market by 2019 through a "war on drugs" approach has had scant effect on global supply while having negative effects on health, human rights, security and development, CNN reported.
According to the report, drug-related deaths have increased by 145 per cent over the last decade, with more than 71,000 overdose deaths in the US in 2017 alone.
At least 3,940 people were executed for drug offenses around the world over the last 10 years, while drug crackdowns in the Philippines resulted in around 27,000 extrajudicial killings.
The IDPC, a network of 177 national and international NGOs concerned with drug policy and drug abuse, is urging the UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs to consider a different approach to narcotics strategy for the next 10 years in the run-up to a March 2019 summit in Vienna, Austria.
"This report is another nail in the coffin for the war on drugs," said Ann Fordham, the Executive Director of IDPC, in a statement.
"The fact that governments and the UN do not see fit to properly evaluate the disastrous impact of the last ten years of drug policy is depressingly unsurprising."
The UN was not immediately available for comment on the report, reports CNN.
In 2017, Mexico, for example, recorded its most murderous year on record due to soaring levels of drug-related violence.
As previously reported by CNN, the Mexican National Institute of Statistics and Geography revealed that there were 31,174 homicides over the course of the year -- an increase of 27 per cent over 2016.
