16 November 2011

Antonio M. Costa at the House  of Lords

Inquiry into the EU Drugs Strategy (16 November 2011)

The Home Affairs Sub-Committee of the House of Lords Select Committee on the European Union has embarked on an inquiry into the EU drugs policies in the hope of influencing the new strategy for 2013-2020.

At the hearing, the Chairman of the Committee, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, has invited Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in 2002-2010, to provide insights on the implementation of the current EU drug policies ,and how this past experience should affect the EU Commission in the preparation of the next (2013-2020) EU Drugs Strategy.

Follow the link to the House of Lords (Select Committee on the EU)

Foreign Affairs

October 2011

Mark Kleiman, Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles, writes (pages 89-101) about the need of  Surgical Strikes in the Drug War, and proposes smarter policies on both sides of the US-Mexican border as well elsewhere in the world. 

According to Prof. Kleiman “current drug policies have unsatisfactory results. What is to replace them?  Neither of the standard alternatives – a more vigorous pursuit of current anti-drugs efforts or a system of legal availability for currently prescribed drugs – offers much hope.  Instead, a set of less conventional approaches is needed.”

After a careful analysis of options Prof. Kleiman mentions my work.  “In 2010, as Antonio Maria Costa was leaving his post as executive director of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime, he remarked on the implausibility of either a drug-free world or a world of free drugs.  Liberating the debate over drug policy from the grip of those twin chimeras might allow the makers of drug policy on both sides of the grand debate, and throughout the rest of the world, to seek a set of policies less destructive than those of the past 40 years”

I thank Prof. Kleiman for correctly interpreting my viewpoint about how to address a tragedy that is causing much crime, suffering and death.

Foreign Affairs October 2011 (pg. 101)

THE ECONOMICS OF CRIME

A discipline to be invented

and

a Nobel prize to be awarded

Antonio Maria Costa

Abstract:  In this statement I examine the many dimensions (socio- economic, political and strategic) of organized crime and insists on the fact that governments’ inability to deal with it, is the results of poor understanding of the ways crime operates, the power it has accumulated and the threat it poses to individuals and nations alike.

The current poor understanding of the problem of crime relates to inadequate research about it, lack of effective criteria to measure it and deplorable absence of reporting in a coherent manner – over time and across countries.  This statement will hopefully spur the world community overcome the knowledge gap and information deficit – so as to help governments take the necessary measures to counter organized crime. 

Stories of wolves, lambs and shepherd

Hearts, minds and conciences confronted by justice and compassion

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan

Today I have decided to speak openly about my work over the past many decades in a variety of international institutions.  Why?  Because I see limits to what overstretched – even banckrupt public sectors can do, nowadays in their pursue of development, justice and security.  And therefore, through this academic institution, I plea for additional mobilization by voluntary associations, religious institutions, the private sector, the media, academicians and, generally, those able to influence young people like those in the audience.

Why make this plea at a Catholic University? Because in the background is Christ’s message to the expert in law, who asked Him how to inherit eternal life.  You recall the Saviour’s words:  learn from the Samaritan and do likewise. What a wonderful mission statement.

LANCET World Report

www.thelancet.com Vol 376 October 2, 2010

Drug crime and criminalisation threaten progress on MDGs

Interview with Antonio Maria Costa

·       International drug crime and the policies intended to tackle it are both threats to progress on health, human rights, and the Millennium Development Goals

Kelly Morris reports.

In preparation for the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Summit, secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, declared on this year’s International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking that “we must recognise the major impediment to development posed by drug abuse and illicit trafficking”, and urged that: “our

work to achieve the MDGs and fight drugs must go hand-in-hand”.  

World Premiere of Not My Life

Statement by Antonio Maria Costa introducing Robert Bilheimer’s Film

Alice Tully Hall, 19 January 2011

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Alice Tully Hall, welcome to the world premiere of Not My Life, a documentary film by Robert Bilheimer, narrated by Ashley Judd.