Ann Fordham

One of our goals in creating the inaugural Global Drug Policy Index (GDPI) was to encourage debate about how to best measure and compare states’ drug policies, and we therefore welcome well informed critical commentary. Although such commentary did feature in the World Report (for example, Harry Sumnall offered lucid and insightful criticism), we felt that this was not true across the piece.

By Ann Fordham, Heather Haase and Marie Nougier NGO engagement in international drug control can be traced as far back as when the issue started being debated under the League of Nations, and has been critical in shaping the trajectory of policy developments ever since. Starting off with only a handful of NGOs attending the Vienna-based Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in the 1950s, civil society participation has grown exponentially in both numbers and breadth of expertise.

WAR IS OVER? June 29, 2021 By Ann Fordham A man sits behind a window in a clinic where he distributes Narcan and other medical harm reduction supplies in St. Louis, Missouri, on May 19, 2021. © Brynn Anderson/AP June 2021 marks 50 years since Richard Nixon declared “drug abuse” the United States’ “public enemy number one.” It is a grim anniversary that resonates not only in the United States but all over the world.