Volume 1, Number 34

June 5, 1998

Special UN General Assembly on Drugs Opens: Family Considerations Mostly Absent

By Austin Ruse

     (NEW YORK - C-FAM) Next Monday the UN convenes a rare Special Session of the General Assembly. Only the 20th such session ever, it will be hosted by the United Nations International Drug Control Program (UNDCP) and will take up the vexing question of drugs. The special session is expected to issue two principal documents, one a political declaration on drug abuse and trafficking, the other a declaration on drug demand reduction. 

     As always, pro-family lobbyists look closely for the role that families can play in these types of UN programs, particularly one that strikes so closely at the heart of the family. Last February at the annual meeting of the Commission on Social Development, Pino Arlacchi, Executive Director of the UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, made a very pro-family statement. "Dysfunctional family life, more than poverty, is one of the most significant factors in predisposing an individual to take drugs," he said, adding that "a supportive family provides a vital shield to drug abuse." It seemed then that the UN was poised to offer families center stage in the drugbattle. 

     Hopes were dashed, however, with the publication of the two draft documents for the upcoming Special Session. One mentions families only once, while the other mentions family and parents once each. Both documents were decided upon in a UNDCP preparatory committee meeting in Vienna at the end of March. 

     In the political document, the single mention of families comes in paragraph 12 wherein it proposes that governments "Call upon our communities, especially families, and their political, religious, educational, cultural, sports, business and union leadership...to promote a society free of drug abuse." That this addition of family may have been an afterthought is suggested by the fact that families do not have cultural, sports, or union leadership. 

     The importance of this meeting is emphasized by the numbers of heads of state who are expected to address the plenary session. US President Bill Clinton speaks on Tuesday, to be followed by several presidents from drug-embattled Latin American. 

     Actively lobbying to include families into this process is the NGO Family Voice, an NGO working out of the David M. Kennedy School of International Studies at Brigham Young University. This week it began distributing a "Proposed Resolution on Strengthening the Family as a Means of Reducing Demand for Drugs." 

     Citing numerous other UN declarations as back-up, the resolution "invites governments, when considering policies to reduce demand for drugs, to acknowledge the primary importance of strengthening families as a means to that end, [and to] consider the impact of governmental actions and policies upon the family as a unit." The proposed resolution is now in the hands of the Permanent Representatives of all 185 Member States of the UN.

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