Statement of Help Not Handcuffs, Inc. on Post-UNGASS Implementation of the Outcome
Document, Chapter IV

Presented by Randy Thompson at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs Intercessional
Meeting – September 28, 2017
Vienna, Austria

I want to thank you for the opportunity to make a contribution to this important discussion. My
name is Randy Thompson, representing Help Not Handcuffs, Inc. which is a United States based
NGO, in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council. Our organization
works to reform drug laws from a recovery and human rights perspective. What this means in
practical terms is that we place the priority on person’s wellbeing and their human rights with a
hope that if drug use is problematic, that they will make better choices when help is offered. We
oppose any coercive policies, including drug criminalization, which cause or increase harm to
people who use drugs and destroy their opportunities for recovery.
I would like to briefly discuss some of the harms that drug criminalization is causing in my
country as experienced by people who use drugs or those recovering, as well as solutions to
these problems.

As a person who used drugs and is now in recovery, I experienced problematic drug use.
However, the most harm came not from using drugs but from the negative effects of drug
prohibition. These violent experiences came when I voluntarily entered drug treatment and
later at the hands of law enforcement during a routine drug arrest. I believe I endured intensive
violence not because I was a threat, but because I was not viewed as a human being. The frail
recovery I had at the time was absolutely destroyed and my attempt to get healthier was set
back by years from my encounter with the two primary institutions that prohibition and drugfree
ideals see as the solution to drug use.

People experiencing these human rights violations by law enforcement, treatment programs or
other institutions, face institutional betrayal and never see any recognition, let alone justice, for
the violence or harm they endure. This betrayal involves institutions harming those reliant
upon them by betraying the trust relationship they have with the community. Many oversight
and accountability systems are obsolete or weak at best. This has led Help Not Handcuffs, Inc. to
work on model legislation to identify and address Institutional Betrayal.

Sadly, these experiences are far from unusual. Forced interaction with police or treatment
programs through drug criminalization brings definitive harm to people. It is well documented
that intensive drug enforcement is tied to an increase in police violence and police sexual
assault. In the U.S. there are no federally aggregated records of drug overdose deaths and
human rights violations in treatment programs, so our organization was left to petition our
home state for this information.

The data we received revealed that drug overdoses were the 3rd leading cause of death in those
treatment programs and only some of the human rights violations were tracked by the state.
Our state’s drug courts have seen 100 participants die in the past five years while forced onto
the program, and an audit revealed the drug court program had falsely inflated its success rates.
It is important to note that treatment terms like “Evidence-Based,” “State Licensed,” and
“Federally Accredited” mean nothing when a person encounters a culture that fosters human
rights violations.

Despite this information being known, it is currently not shared with the public. Legislative
efforts to offer individuals and families only the most superficial transparency of overdose
death and human rights violations at treatment programs have gained traction but require
more political will. Not only are individuals and families blindsided by not having this
information but lawmakers routinely make decisions without these facts in hand.

These points are important because we are quick to assume that people who use drugs need
treatment, or can be assisted to make the right decisions if involved in the criminal justice
system or drug court. The sad fact is that arrest and treatment can be harmful or deadly. These
notions also ignore the reality that most people who use drugs do not experience problematic
drug use, and the minority of drug users who do have a substance use disorder recover on their
own and without any treatment. Subjecting people to arrest for recreational drug use is a wildly
disproportionate and risky sanction and for the SUD population prohibition means arresting
someone for displaying a symptom of a clinically identifiable health issue.

I want to bring up one alarming U.S. trend that has gained attention – the skyrocketing fentanyl
deaths, which have increased 540% in just 3 years and have surpassed heroin overdose deaths.
Prohibition policy has removed all of the legal institutions, which would have offered
protections for consumers. Reinstating conservative harm reduction can easily prevent these
prohibition-caused deaths and regulatory approaches like drug consumption rooms and heroin
assisted treatment programs, which have been successful in removing all or a significant
amount of this risk. Drug Regulation instead of criminalization would ensure that the public
does not consume deadly levels of fentanyl.

The take away from this disheartening testimony is that prohibition is a clear driver of harm
that can be avoided in the implementation of the UNGASS Outcome Document. Instead of
clinging to a policy that has failed and caused incalculable human suffering, there is an
opportunity to honor the human rights mandate of the Outcome Document by putting human
rights before our contempt of drug use.

For your reference I am attaching our previous submissions, which give more detail on the
above issues. Thank you again for the opportunity to be part of this discussion.

Sincerely,
Randy Thompson

CEO