A number of nongovernmental organizations of Ukraine called for uniting for joint control over the government's actions to adopt and implement the government policy on drugs.

As activists said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday, the initiative of the DRUGPOLICY.UA consortium should ensure compliance with European approaches, human rights and be based on an analysis of the effectiveness and implementation problems of the previous one.

As recalled, in particular, by a member of the board of the NGO City Initiatives and Public Transformations, co-organizer of the Freedom March for reforms of the government policy on drugs, Nazariy Sovsun, a public discussion of the Government Drug Policy Strategy of Ukraine for 2023-2030 was organized by the Ministry of Health on August 30. However, in the previous round of public discussions of the strategy in 2021, the government ignored proposals from organizations representing the views of more than 300,000 people who use drugs.

At the same time, he emphasized the inadmissibility of the simultaneous adoption of a strategy and an action plan for its implementation.

"Both documents have been put up for discussion simultaneously. However, in fact, it is necessary to approve the strategy first and then develop a plan for its implementation. Secondly, the strategy document should include clear indicators of its execution, by which the success of its implementation may be assessed in the future. However, these indicators can only be defined in relation to the final version of the document, which is currently under discussion," Sovsun said.

He noted the need for analysis and the state of implementation of the previous strategy. "Otherwise, the succession and duration of the government drug policy will only concern the tradition of selective implementation of the strategy and ignoring those principles that, for example, the Ministry of Internal Affairs does not like," he said.

According to Sovsun, the Government Drug Policy Strategy should meet the qualification criteria for Ukraine's accession to the EU, emphasize the strengthening of institutions and legal norms that ensure democracy, the rule of law, gender specificity, protect human rights, and allow scientists access to scientific research. At the same time, he said, the government strategy cannot but take into account the realities of martial law in the context of the full-scale war with Russia.

"The Ukrainian strategy cannot afford to respond to the doctrine of the Russian Federation, which is nothing more than an instrument of influence in the international arena," the expert said.

In turn, Director of the charitable foundation VOLNA – Ukrainian Network of People Who Use Drugs Oleh Dymaretsky noted "inadequately low minimum threshold for prosecution in Ukraine: it is much lower than in many European countries."

"In practice, this means that all the police efforts go to punish people who use psychoactive substances, and these efforts simply do not remain for the fight against organized drug crime, which distributes and sells, including among minors," he said.

According to Dymaretsky, the Government Drug Policy Strategy until 2020 planned to amend Health Ministry order No. 188 "On Approval of Tables of Small, Big and Especially Big Quantities of Narcotic Drugs, Psychotropic Substances, and Precursors that are in Illegal Trafficking," but this did not happen.

"It would be much more efficient to direct funds to harm reduction programs, rehabilitation and substitution maintenance therapy programs, and overdose prevention," he said.

For his part, Coordinator of the DRUGPOLICY.UA consortium, a representative of the Expert Council on Drug Policy of ENPUD Ihor Kozak said that representatives of nongovernmental organizations would make sure that the new government drug strategy for the period up to 2030 could really bring Ukraine closer to the EU.