We need your help with an important campaign opportunity!
In March 2010, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), a UN drug policy body, will gather. A coalition of NGOs, including the Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance, the International Union Against Cancer, Human Rights Watch and the International Association of Hospice and Palliative Care, has been urging CND to address head-on the desperately poor availability of opioid medications in much of the world. Last year, in part due to our coalition’s advocacy, CND included a special agenda item on this topic.
We now need to make sure that as many countries as possible make statements under this agenda item. If a critical mass of countries does, we believe that our issue will become a standard component of CND’s work. That, in turn, will help us fight excessively restrictive drug regulations and inadequate supply and distribution systems around the world.
Please write and speak to your country’s officials using the materials we have prepared for you by FEBRUARY 10 2010.
Here is some background information and materials to support your advocacy including:
1. A draft sample letter to government officials. We would encourage you to send this letter, altered as appropriate, to relevant officials and follow-up it up with phone calls.
2. A number of excerpts from official documents by the International Narcotics Control Board, Commission on Narcotic Drugs and World Health Organization that you can use as a reference in your discussions with officials.
This is a list of officials who participated in last year’s Commission on Narcotic Drugs. This list will give you a starting point in figuring out which officials to contact about this year’s session.
This is a copy of the provisional agenda for the 53rd session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs which will take place from March 8-12, 2010.
Please email us if you have further questions and let us know when you contact your officials.
