The U.N.'s annual drug report for 2007 (PDF), released this week, attempts to paint a picture of progress in drug control worldwide. However, global markets for most drugs are stable, and opium production in Afghanistan is breaking records.

The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which puts out the report, will be faced next year with a ten-year review of goals set at the 1998 U.N. General Assembly Special Session on drugs (UNGASS). That session resulted in a declaration outlining a global strategy for the simultaneous reduction of both illicit supply and demand, and an UNGASS motto: "A Drug Free World - We can do it!"

In the 2007 World Drug Report, this language is abandoned in favor of the idea of "containment," with claims that global drug control efforts have halted the spread of the drug abuse epidemic. The new language is an improvement, but may not be significant without new strategies that aim to reduce the harms of both drug misuse and current failed policies.

The report is notably lacking in discussion of how current policies have impacted the spread of diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C, with many governments reluctant to adopt life-saving harm reduction policies such as syringe exchange. The report also fails to address the huge number of people around the world who are incarcerated for violating drug laws.

Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said, "When drug control policies focus on reducing drug use per se, and effectively ignore the negative consequences of the policies themselves, they risk doing far more harm than good.  Those charged with enforcing the drug laws are unaware and/or indifferent to the original rationale for drug control – which typically was to reduce the harms to health."