During the negotiations on membership in the European Union, Ukraine will be one of the first to agree on drug policy.
In general, the essence of these negotiations is the harmonization of legislation. In this process, all Ukrainian legislation is divided into “clusters”, which will be agreed in turn. Certain parts of drug policy are included in the first cluster — it will have to be agreed on one of the first.
Ukraine applied to join the European Union more than three years ago. Last week, on June 26, the European Council voted to open negotiations with Ukraine — unfortunately, it was one vote short. And yet, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for the opening of negotiations with Ukraine.
On the eve of the vote, an international advocacy group that deals with drug policy in Central and Eastern European countries arrived in Ukraine. The group was established in 2021. It includes politicians from countries with very different drug policies: both liberal (for example, the Czech Republic) and conservative (for example, Latvia and Lithuania). From Ukraine, the group includes Olena Pinchuk and Volodymyr Tymoshenko. The group is chaired by former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski.
Chairman of ECECACD Aleksander Kwasniewski. Member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which has been investigating the consequences of the so-called War on Drugs since 2011.
БФ «Здорові рішення»
One of the issues the group is working on is the decriminalization of personal drug use.
The logic behind decriminalizing use is simple — the less the state punishes drug users, the less it prosecutes and imprisons them, the less problems it has with treating HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, and tuberculosis. The most visible and most successful campaign in the world is to decriminalize personal cannabis use—both for medical purposes and to relax at a party (the latter is described in the law as “recreational”).
The situation with cannabis in Ukraine has many nuances. Our legislation is gradually liberalizing. This is noticeable, for example, from the key resolution 770 of the Cabinet of Ministers, which regulates the circulation of narcotic substances. The latest editions of this resolution allowed the cultivation of cannabis for medical and industrial purposes.
At the same time, recreational use of cannabis is prohibited in Ukraine — either administrative or criminal proceedings can be initiated against the consumer. The difference between an “administrative” and a “criminal” case for a cannabis consumer is the amount that was seized from him — less (or more) 5 grams. Is this a lot or a little? The group members suggest comparing this parameter for cannabis with similar indicators in other countries — it is the smallest (i.e. the strictest) in Europe.
Perhaps the parameter of “criminalization” would not have been paid attention to if the big war had not started.
Every year in Ukraine, the number of veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is increasing. The number of veterans who use narcotics is also increasing. Therefore, after 2022, the number of veterans convicted for personal use has increased sharply — and precisely under a criminal article.
As a result, one of the key documents for drug policy is the order of the Ministry of Health, which establishes the same parameter of "criminalization". However, the head of the Ministry of Health cannot change this order on his own. First, he must agree on the changes with all the key "security officials": the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the National Police, the deputies of the Prosecutor General and the head of the Security Service of Ukraine, the director of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI). This is not a complete list.
Members of the advocacy group propose using the same “harmonization” with the EU to solve this and other problems of domestic drug policy. The group’s chairman Aleksander Kwasniewski says that changing drug policy will signal that Ukraine is ready to act on its path to the EU. At the same time, according to him, drug policy is the easiest part of the upcoming negotiations with the Europeans.