According to the UN there are a quarter of a BILLION drug users globally, which is more than the entire populations of the UK, France and Germany combined. This is a significant minority of the world's population.

There are a myriad of reasons why these individuals take drugs, but usually they make a proactive decision to do so. In other words, they adopt a primordial right to choose what to put into their OWN bodies, and they choose how to change their OWN consciousness.

Unfortunately, these innate personal freedoms are largely denied and proscribed by states and governments. Non-violent citizens are arrested, criminalized and imprisoned, for no other reason than that they have exercised this fundamental human right with respect to THEMSELVES.

This (often violent) oppression is augmented and sustained via media coverage which ignores and marginalizes the victims' interests and perspectives. Mainstream output invariably aligns with a destructive war on drugs narrative, and excludes direct and factual information/news which would save lives. The aggressive flow of ideologically based propaganda is unrelenting, whilst even the most basic harm-reduction initiatives, such as the '10 Commandments of Safer Drug Use', remain totally unreported and largely unknown.

This unremitting flood of unbalanced journalism manifestly serves to re-enforce the stigma and hostility endured by what has become a socially persecuted minority. Drug users have no voice, no statutory protection, and nowhere to turn.

With their civil and human rights being routinely and systematically violated across the world the picture could hardly be bleaker. It is a level of abuse and degradation which for any other minority would be widely recognised and condemned. Even the term itself, drug user, has been so misappropriated that it has become pejorative, placing anyone thus referenced outside the orbit of normal moral consideration.

It is within this desperate and harrowing context that the following demands are presented:

• The immediate cessation of the war on drugs.
• Drug dependency and addiction to be treated as health issues rather than criminal matters.
• The release of all imprisoned non-violent drug offenders, and all convictions for non-violent drug offences to be expunged.
• Recognition of the right to use drugs recreationally, inclusive of social parity with alcohol users and a cessation of cultural and other forms of discrimination.
• Urgent repeal and reform of global drug treaties to expedite the above, with new drug related legislation framed to recognise the supremacy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its application to all.

RELATED INFORMATION & SAFETY RESOURCES

UN Charter of Human Rights
The 10 Commandments of Safer Drug Use
TripSit
Release
The Drug Users Bible
Volteface
ACLU