In the national statement of Brazil today it was said ‘We ought to recognise the important progress achieved over the last decade. But the achievements have not been accomplished. The aim of a world free of drugs has proven to be unobtainable and in fact has led to unintended consequences such as the increase of the prison population, increase in violence related to an illegal drug market, increase in homicide and violence among the young population with a dramatic impact on mortality and life expectancy – social exclusion due to drug use and the emergence of synthetic drugs.’
The Brazilian representative went on to say: ‘The ungass revision process identifies the need for a systematic revision of drug policies. At this historic moment with the opportunity to reassess the past 10 years and more importantly to think about the challenges to come, Brazil enforces the need for recognition of and moving towards: harm reduction strategies; assessing drug dependence, and hiv aids populations; securing the human rights of drug users; correcting the imbalance between investments in supply and demand reduction areas; increasing actions and programmes of prevention based on scientific evidence with an emphasis towards vulnerable populations and towards increase of access to and care for propblematic or vulnerable drug users; and to the acknowledgment of different models of treatment for the need for increased funding of these efforts’