{"id":1346,"date":"2013-01-11T06:05:17","date_gmt":"2013-01-10T22:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/?p=1346"},"modified":"2013-02-08T14:09:59","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T06:09:59","slug":"breaking-the-taboo-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/fr\/2013\/01\/11\/breaking-the-taboo-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking the taboo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Breaking<\/a>Let us break the taboo on debate and reform. The time for action is now. Sign the petition http:\/\/www.breakingthetaboo.info\/<\/a><\/h2>\n

Breaking the Taboo is a global grass-roots campaign website against the War on Drugs, run by the Beckley Foundation in association with The Global Commission on Drug Policy, Virgin Unite, Avaaz and Sundog Pictures. The Mission Statement of the campaign is the Beckley Foundation Public Letter calling for a new approach to the War on Drugs, signed by nine Presidents, twelve Nobel prize winners, and many other world figures. The site hosts a coalition of international NGOs, united in their belief that the War on Drugs has failed and that global drug policy can and must be reformed. An Avaaz petition is hosted on the site, which will be presented to the UN. We hope that by collecting together so many voices calling for change, we will finally be able to persuade governments and lawmakers into adopting a humane and rational approach to drugs.<\/p>\n

Mission Statement:<\/a><\/h2>\n

The global war on drugs has failed. It is time for a new approach.<\/h2>\n

We call on Governments and Parliaments to recognise that:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fifty years after the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs was launched, the global war on drugs has failed, and has had many unintended and devastating consequences worldwide.<\/p>\n

Use of the major controlled drugs has risen, and supply is cheaper and more available than ever before. The UN conservatively estimates that there are now over 250 million drug users worldwide.<\/p>\n

Illicit drugs are now the third most valuable industry in the world, after food and oil, all in the control of criminals. Fighting the war on drugs costs the world\u2019s taxpayers incalculable billions each year. Millions of people are in prison worldwide for drug-related offences, mostly personal users and small-time dealers.<\/p>\n

Corruption amongst law-enforcers and politicians, especially in producer and transit countries, has spread as never before, endangering democracy and civil society. Stability, security and development are threatened by the fallout from the war on drugs, as are human rights. Tens of thousands of people die in the drug war each year.<\/p>\n

The drug-free world so confidently predicted by supporters of the war on drugs is further than ever from attainment.The policies of prohibition create more harms than they prevent. We must seriously consider shifting resources away from criminalising tens of millions of otherwise law abiding citizens, and move towards an approach based on health, harm-reduction, cost-effectiveness and respect for human rights.<\/p>\n

Evidence consistently shows that these health-based approaches deliver better results than criminalisation. Improving our drug policies is one of the key policy challenges of our time. It is time for world leaders to fundamentally review their strategies in response to the drug phenomenon.<\/p>\n

At the root of current policies lies the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. It is time to re-examine this treaty, which imposes a \u201cone-size-fits-all\u201d solution, in order to allow individual countries the freedom to explore drug policies that better suit their domestic needs.<\/p>\n

As the production, demand and use of drugs cannot be eradicated, new ways must be found to minimise harms, and new policies, based on scientific evidence, must be explored.<\/p>\n

Let us break the taboo on debate and reform. The time for action is now.<\/h2>\n

Yours faithfully,<\/p>\n

\n

President Juan Manuel Santos, President of Colombia<\/p>\n

President Otto P\u00e9rez Molina, President of Guatemala<\/p>\n

President C\u00e9sar Gaviria, Former President of Colombia<\/p>\n

President Lech Wa\u0142\u0119sa, Former President of Poland, Nobel Prize winner<\/p>\n

President Aleksander Kwa\u015bniewski, Former President of Poland<\/p>\n

President Jimmy Carter, Former President of the United States of America<\/p>\n

President Fernando H. Cardoso, Former President of Brazil<\/p>\n

President Ruth Dreifuss, Former President of Switzerland<\/p>\n

President Vincente Fox, Former President of Mexico<\/p>\n

Sir Richard Branson, Entrepreneur and Founder of the Virgin Group<\/p>\n

Bernardo Bertolucci, Oscar-winning Film Director<\/p>\n

Carlos Fuentes, Novelist and essayist<\/p>\n

Sean Parker, Founding President of Facebook, Director of Spotify<\/p>\n

Thorvald Stoltenberg, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs (Norway) and UN High Commissioner for Refugees<\/p>\n

Asma Jahangir, Former UN Special Rapporteur on Arbitrary, Extrajudicial and Summary Execution<\/p>\n

Louise Arbour, CC, GOQ, Former UN High-Commissioner for Human Rights<\/p>\n

Professor Sir Anthony Leggett, Physicist, Nobel Prize winner<\/p>\n

Dr. Kary Mullis, Chemist, Nobel Prize winner<\/p>\n

Maria Cattaui, Former Secretary-General of the International Chamber of Commerce<\/p>\n

Wis\u0142awa Szymborska, Poet, Nobel Prize winner<\/p>\n

Professor Sir Harold Kroto, Chemist, Nobel Prize winner<\/p>\n

Professor Sir Harold Kroto, Chemist, Nobel Prize winner<\/p>\n

Gilberto Gil, Musician, former Minister of Culture, Brazil<\/p>\n

Professor Thomas C. Schelling, Economist, Nobel Prize winner<\/p>\n

Professor Sir Peter Mansfield, Economist, Nobel Prize winner<\/p>\n

Professor Niall Ferguson, Professor of History at Harvard University<\/p>\n

Professor Colin Blakemore, Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and University of Warwick<\/p>\n

Professor David Nutt, Former Chair of the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs<\/p>\n

Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, Professor of Economics at Cambridge<\/p>\n

Dr. Julian Huppert, MP, Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform<\/p>\n

Dr. Muhammed Abdul Bari, MBE, Former Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain<\/p>\n

Trudie Styler, Actress and producer<\/p>\n

Professor Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University<\/p>\n

Lord Mancroft, Chair of the Drug and Alcohol Foundation<\/p>\n

Professor A. C. Grayling, Master of the New College of the Humanities<\/p>\n

General Lord Ramsbotham, Former HM Chief Inspector of Prisons<\/p>\n

Lord MacDonald, QC, Former Head of the Crown Prosecution Service<\/p>\n

Sir Peregrine Worsthorne, Former Editor of The Sunday Telegraph<\/p>\n

Tom Brake, MP, Co-chair of the Lib Dem Home Affairs, Justice and Equalities Parliamentary Policy Committee<\/p>\n

Professor Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT<\/p>\n

George P. Schultz, Former US Secretary of State<\/p>\n

Yoko Ono, Musician and artist<\/p>\n

Mario Vargas Llosa, Writer, Nobel Prize winner<\/p>\n

Jaswant Singh, Former Minister of Defence, of Finance, and for External Affairs, India<\/p>\n

Sting,\u00a0 Musician and actor<\/p>\n

Michel Kazatchkine,\u00a0 United Nations Special Envoy for HIV\/AIDS<\/p>\n

John Whitehead,\u00a0 Former US Deputy Secretary of State<\/p>\n

John Perry Barlow,\u00a0 Co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation<\/p>\n

Javier Solana, KOGF, KCMG,\u00a0 Former EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy<\/p>\n

Professor Kenneth Arrow,\u00a0 Economist, Nobel Prize winner<\/p>\n

Jeremy Thomas,\u00a0 Film Producer<\/p>\n

Professor John Polanyi,\u00a0 Chemist, Nobel Prize winner<\/p>\n

Pavel B\u00e9m,\u00a0 Former Mayor of Prague<\/p>\n

Dr. Jan Wiarda,\u00a0 Former President of European Police Chiefs<\/p>\n

Professor Lord Piot,\u00a0 Former UN Under Secretary-General<\/p>\n

Professor Martin L. Perl,\u00a0 Physicist, Nobel Prize winner<\/p>\n

Lord Rees, OM,\u00a0 Astronomer Royal and former President of the Royal Society<\/p>\n

Professor Sir Ian Gilmore,\u00a0 Former President of the Royal College of Physicians<\/p>\n

Professor Trevor Robbins,\u00a0 Professor of Neuroscience at Cambridge<\/p>\n

Caroline Lucas, MP,\u00a0 Leader of the Green Party and MP for Brighton<\/p>\n

Professor Jonathan Wolff,\u00a0 Professor of Philosophy at UCL<\/p>\n

Carel Edwards,\u00a0 Former Head of the EU Commission\u2019s Drug Policy Unit<\/p>\n

Professor Robin Room,\u00a0 School of Population Health, University of Melbourne<\/p>\n

Gary Johnson,\u00a0 Former Republican US Presidential Candidate<\/p>\n

Bob Ainsworth, MP,\u00a0 Former UK Secretary of State for Defence<\/p>\n

Nicholas Green, QC,\u00a0 Former Chairman of the Bar Council<\/p>\n

Peter Lilley, MP,\u00a0 Former Secretary of State for Social Security<\/p>\n

Tom Lloyd,\u00a0 Former Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire<\/p>\n

Professor Robert Grayling,\u00a0 Dean of School of Medicine, KCL<\/p>\n

Paul Flynn, MP,\u00a0 Labour MP for Newport West<\/p>\n

Dr. Patrick Aeberhard,\u00a0 Former President of Doctors of the World<\/p>\n

Amanda Feilding,\u00a0 Director of the Beckley Foundation<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let us break the taboo on debate and reform. The time for action is now. Sign the petition http:\/\/www.breakingthetaboo.info\/ Breaking the Taboo is a global grass-roots campaign website against the War on Drugs, run by the Beckley Foundation in association with The Global Commission on Drug Policy, Virgin Unite, Avaaz and Sundog Pictures. The Mission … Continue reading “Breaking the taboo”<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,70,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drug-legalization-2","category-drug-policy-reform","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Breaking-the-taboo-Morgan-e1355436037182.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1346"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1350,"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1346\/revisions\/1350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}