United Nations : Pakistan has voiced its grave concern with “the emerging trends to legalise use of illicit drugs”, saying “so-called human rights-based approach are likely further complicate the issue”. Pakistani Narcotics Control Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan made the remarks while speaking at the special session of the UN general assembly on the World Drug Problem, a three-day event which opened here on Tuesday.
“We are gravely concerned over the emerging trends in some parts of the world to legalise use of illicit drugs,” Nisar Ali said. “This would give a fillip to drug demand and thus igniting the supply chain having direct fallouts on our region.”
“Furthermore, the concepts lacking consensus, like hard reduction and the so-called human rights-based approach are likely to further complicate this issue,” he said. “We have dreamt of a drug-free society rather than a drug-tolerant society.”
“We believe that drug dynamics in producing countries, transit countries and target countries are diverse,” he said. “No two countries and no two regions have similar environment. Therefore, there are no ‘one size fits all’ solutions.”
The UN special session, which will conclude on Thursday, is the first of its kind in 18 years. In 1998, world leaders gathered at the UN headquarters in New York to discuss a shared goal: how to create a “drug-free world”.
