New NPC report argues drug-policy debate is forgetting a basic human right: prevention

27.06.2025 - The Swedish Drug Policy Center (Narkotikapolitiskt Center, NPC) released Rättigheter och retorik – Vikten av förebyggande narkotikapolitik ur ett rättighetsperspektiv, a report by policy adviser and former journalist Pierre Andersson. NPC says the document is meant to rebalance a global conversation it believes has “tipped over” into a one-track push for decriminalisation and legalisation of drugs.

Prevention framed as a right, not just a health tactic

The report’s starting point is that states have a human-rights obligation to protect the population - especially children - from drug harms, and that universal prevention measures “have the greatest effect at population level”. In 2023 the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child criticised Sweden for doing too little drug-prevention work and urged the country to step up its efforts, a reprimand the authors cite as evidence that prevention is itself part of the rights framework.

A debate dominated by well-funded reform groups

Andersson argues that the international human-rights narrative on drugs is being shaped by a relatively small circle of NGOs that receive sizable support from the Open Society Foundations (OSF). According to the report, “around forty” organisations received at least US$82 million from OSF between 2016 and 2023; the foundation was directly involved in 11 side-events at the 2023 UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs and financially linked to 38 more. That concentration of funding, the report says, has produced an “echo chamber” in which prevention and child protection are largely absent.

Evidence cited from Canada and the INCB

To illustrate the risks of legalisation, the report highlights new Canadian data: more than one in four parents now use cannabis regularly and cases of acute cannabis poisoning among young children have risen since the drug was legalised in 2018. It also references the International Narcotics Control Board’s finding that legalisation in Canada and several US states has led to higher consumption, more health harms and a still-thriving illicit market.

Four-pillar alternative

Rather than choosing between “repression” and “free markets,” the authors propose four pillars for a rights-based, health-oriented policy:

Maintain a considerate ban with general-preventive effect, enforced with respect for rights.
Smarter sanctions, steering drug-dependent offenders to treatment first.
Equitable, effective care available nationwide.
Strong prevention and early detection, treated as core elements of the right to health.

Launch timed with newspaper op-ed

The report was released alongside a joint opinion piece in Göteborgs-Posten by Andersson and NPC director Peter Moilanen. The op-ed warns that turning drug control into a pure rights-versus-prohibition argument “confuses symptoms with causes” and that children ultimately pay the price when prevention loses ground.

What happens next

NPC hopes the findings will feed into the Swedish government’s response to the ongoing Narcotics Inquiry. Whether lawmakers adopt the report’s prevention-first framing now becomes the next test in Sweden’s long-running drugs debate.

Read the full report HERE