International Drug Policy Consortium consultant, Simon Baldwin, produced this informative publication. A link to the full document is available below.

Objective of the Report

This report was commissioned by the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), with the support of Australian Aid, for the purpose of developing a better understanding of drug policy advocacy activity in 10 Asian countries: Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. It aims to achieve three goals:

• Identify organisations engaged in harm reduction and drug policy advocacy
• Identify gaps and challenges in harm reduction and drug policy advocacy that remain to be addressed
• Develop recommendations for prioritising new activities in harm reduction and drug policy advocacy.

The report does not provide an exhaustive review of drug policy content, rather it focuses on the process of drug policy making (Gilson et al., 2011; Gilson & Raphaely, 2008; Walt & Gilson, 1994) and attempts to understand the relationships between key stakeholders (Gonzalez-Block, 2004; Ritter, 2009), including both policy makers and policy advocates, engaged in policy processes at local and regional level. The report combines data collected from published reports with key informant interviews to draw its conclusions.

Key recommendations

In order to address the issues raised above, the report makes the following key recommendations:

1. Increase understanding of drug policy processes – given the opaque nature of drug policy making, it is recommended that a greater emphasis be placed on understanding how decisions on drug policy are made. While this report partly sought to focus on this question, largely due to the complexity of the various political systems, it was not possible to gain a clear understanding about the detailed processes that underpin drug policy making.  Understanding policy processes are critical to develop targeted policy advocacy strategies, and to avoid the current situation, where the majority of advocacy efforts target stakeholders with the least amount of power to change policy.

2. Increase the capacity of organisations to advocate for drug policy issues, beyond the delivery of harm reduction services – in parallel with generating a more sophisticated understanding of the nature of drug policy making across the region, it is also critically important to increase the capacity of organisations to advocate on a broader range of drug policy-related issues. For example, the criminalisation of drug use, compulsory detention in the name of treatment, proportionality of sentencing for all drug offences, and the rights of farmers affected by crop eradication are all critically important drug policy issues facing the region, but these receive significantly less attention than HIV-related issues. Further, investment should be made to engage a broader range of organisations to work on drug policy advocacy, particularly those which already target their advocacy at the criminal justice and social affairs sectors of government, such as civil society organisations advocating on human rights, governance, criminal justice and development issues.

3. Establish a regional drug policy advocacy body – modelled on the Global Commission on Drug Policy. Such a body could undertake a detailed review of drug policy making across the region and promote alternative and evidence- based approaches that are more effective at managing the negative consequences of drug markets, as well as being consistent with health, human rights and development principles. The group could also promote alternative visions and strategies to other regional bodies such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which continues to endorse unrealistic and harmful policy goals, such as achieving a drug-free region by 2015.

Read the full report