Millions of people each year suffer from unnecessary pain because they have no access to essential medicines. Narcotics drugs are necessary for this pain relief. The barriers to medical availability are well known: restrictive laws. The CND has primarily focused on law enforcement. This is starting to change.

We welcome the statements of a number of delegations. The resolution that has just been adopted places the issue on next year’s CND. We congratulate the US for taking leadership on this issue. We also note the statement of the UNODC Executive Director: “let’s unleash the capacity of drugs to do good”.

Here, we only have one face of the picture in the CND. It is now up to the states to ensure that their engagements are implemented on the ground. We urge you to ensure that this happens.