In this report, IDPC has identified seven ‘blind spots’, or topics that were not reflected in the ‘challenges’ identified in the 2019 Ministerial Declaration. While some of these topics are new, others were simply omitted in 2019. The urgency of these blind spots – and the need to better align drug policies with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and human rights – requires that the international community recognises them as priority drug policy areas for the years to come:

• Blind spot 1: Recognising the potential of legal regulation as a tool to break the linkage between drug markets and organised crime
• Blind spot 2: Acknowledging the growing role of surveillance technologies in drug responses, and the need for international standards based on evidence and human rights
• Blind Spot 3: Breaking the taboo on harm reduction amidst a global public health crisis
• Blind spot 4: Placing racial justice and the principles of equality and non-discrimination at the centre of drug policy-making
• Blind spot 5: Decolonising the drug control regime by addressing the tensions between the drug conventions and Indigenous Peoples’ rights
• Blind spot 6: Remedying the lack of UN guidance and recommendations on the legal regulation of drugs in line with health, human rights, and development
• Blind spot 7: Recognising the environmental damage associated with drug policy. 

Recommendations for the 2024 mid-term review

The Shadow Report concludes with a range of recommendations that seek the leverage the mid-term review of the 2019 Ministerial Declaration on drugs as an opportunity for transformative change for the UN drug control regime:

• The debates and outcome document of the 2024 mid-term review should integrate the normative developments that have taken place at the CND, the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council since 2019, including explicit support for harm reduction, the rescheduling of cannabis, new language on racial discrimination in drug control, and the principle of adequate sequencing in alternative development.
• Following the recommendations of the OHCHR, the outcome document of the mid-term review should recognise the protection of health, human rights, equality and non-discrimination as overarching objectives for the system, and not reiterate the drug eradication goals.
• The outcome document should update the list of challenges included in the ‘Stocktaking’ section of the 2019 Ministerial Declaration to incorporate the new developments that have emerged since 2019, listed in the ‘blind spot’ section above. The workplan of intersessional meetings during the 2024-2029 period should also reflect these new challenges.
• During the mid-term review, we encourage Member States to acknowledge the existence of legally regulated markets for the non-medical use of internationally controlled drugs, and to call for monitoring, reporting and guidance on such markets by UN entities.
• While Member States should aim for an outcome document adopted by consensus, they should not shy away from calling for a vote on the final text to ensure the adoption of an outcome document that truly calls for transformative change, rather than being a simple ticking-the-box exercise.