The National Conference on Drug Policy was organized by UNODC Regional Program Office for South Eastern Europe. The conference took place on November 28-30 in Kyiv, with participation of the European Union project “EU-ACT”, Ministry of Health of Ukraine, National Police of Ukraine, General Prosecutors Office of Ukraine, Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, Security Service of Ukraine, other central executive bodies, representatives of the expert communities, international experts, public.

During the conference the compliance of the national drug policy with international context and Ukraine’s commitments under Ukraine-European Union Association Agreement was reviewed.

Main challenges for Ukraine include: implementation of the prevention and rehabilitation programs based on scientific evidence; introduction of the procedure of recognizing the substances as analogues of narcotic drugs; lack of accessibility for the patients of the medicines containing controlled drugs. Besides, the current situation when a person on drugs suffers from significant restriction of rights and freedoms because of his/her health status is unacceptable.

UHHRU Executive Director Oleksandr Pavlichenko spoke at the plenary discussion about protection of the human rights of the people having drug addiction or HIV positive status.

The experts of UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the Kingdom of Spain Prosecutor’s Office presented useful experience in this sphere.

Ministry of Health of Ukraine is responsible for development of the state policy on circulation of drugs, psychotropic substances, their analogues and precursors, counteracting their illegal circulation and coordinates the activities of the executive bodies in this sphere. The Ministry prepared the action plan for 2019-2020 for implementation of the State Strategy on Drugs till 2020, which will be submitted for the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers shortly.

Source moz.gov.ua