Lift the Ban!

Kofi Annan on Why it's time to legalize drugs
Der Spiegel (Germany)
Monday, February 22, 2016

In my experience, good public policy is best shaped by the dispassionate analysis of what in practice has worked, or not. Policy based on common assumptions and popular sentiments can become a recipe for mistaken prescriptions and misguided interventions. Nowhere is this divorce between rhetoric and reality more evident than in the formulation of global drug policies, where too often emotions and ideology rather than evidence have prevailed. Scientific evidence and our concern for health and human rights must shape drug policy.