ID: 923

Type of submission: Oral

Conference track: Advocacy

Topics: Human Rights and Harm Reduction; Punitive Laws and Law Enforcement

Presenting author: Moulay Ahmed Douraidi

Presenting author biography:

- National sections coordinator at ALCS. Trainer in harm reduction programs among vulnerable populations.National advocacy officer, and Human Rights officer at ALCS. In charge of the fight against HIV/AIDS in workplace program, in Morocco. And Other functions related to Human Rights defense

Politicians, the Association in the Fight Against AIDS (ALCS) and cannabis cultivators gathered to organize the International Symposium on Cannabis (kif) and drugs, “all for alternatives based on the sustainable development of health and human rights"

Moulay Ahmed Douraidi

Introduction: Morocco's Northern region, the Rif, is the historical region for cannabis cultivation and the most important source of kif in the world.
Morocco’s legislation criminalizes drug users and producers; however Morocco is also the only Arab state with a national harm reduction program, despite political and legal obstacles. In front of these contradictions emerged an alliance between politicians, the ALCS and cultivators. The common denominator of the alliance is an alternative approaches to drugs policies based on sustainable development, health and human rights.
Description: the International Symposium organized in March 2016, in the framework of preparations for the United Nations Special Session of drug policies UNGAASS 2016 engaged Morocco in the course of the global movement to advocate against the war on drugs – which has failed since the past four decades – the search for solutions and alternatives based on sustainable development, health and human rights. During the seminar, suggestions were made to official institutions by civil society and international and national experts in drug policies.
As a result, a synergistic response emerged:
• The Tangier Appeal directed towards UNGASS’s participants,
• A letter from the leaders of the most important Moroccan human rights associations to the Secretary General of the United Nations
• Asylum to his Majesty the King of Morocco to entrust the economic councils, social and environmental, and the National Council for Human Rights to do a study, on a consultative basis with all the actors involved, on the first prospects to identify alternative public policy in the field of drug development, and the second for the prospects of amending drug-related legal system from a human rights perspective.
Next steps:
Pursue the recommendations of the international conference which favors the decriminalization,with the CNDH and EESC presidents and to monitor and implement workable conclusions about it.