Dear John,

Global drug policy is denying climate justice.

I am excited to show you our new film demonstrating how prohibition is preventing action on climate change.

Despite this fact, drug policy is almost always ignored in climate policy. 

We intend to change this and bring the message that drug policy is climate policy to the centre of the climate justice agenda.

Prohibition weakens governments and leaves public services dysfunctional and corrupt. Effective climate action requires a functioning rule of law and states that are legitimate and accountable to their citizens. It requires that criminal actors— whose number one revenue stream is drugs — do not ultimately determine the fate of land, resources, and biodiversity. 

Many of the countries most weakened by the illicit drugs trade are those who host ecosystems that have the greatest potential for capturing carbon. These forests follow the same equatorial line of the main producing and trafficking routes of the illicit drugs trade.

The contradiction:

The most recent report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change calls for 'accelerated climate action' to implement climate resilient development.

Yet in contrast the UN Office for Drugs and Crime has just published its annual World Drug Report which fortifies and strengthens prohibition.

This contradiction undermines global efforts to mitigate the climate emergency. This is the message Health Poverty Action delivered last week to the UN in our statement at the launch event of the World Drug Report in New York.  

Join us as we bring this message into the climate justice debates, and call on governments and the UN to legally regulate the drugs trade so that it works for people and our planet -  not against it. 

Please share this video with your networks and on social media using this hashtag. #drugpolicyisclimatepolicy

For any further information please do not hesitate to get intouch with me. [email protected]. For all information about this area of work vist our website

In solidarity, 

Clemmie James,

Campaigns Communicator