Earlier this month, Nick Clegg wrote for Spanish newspaper El Pais about the need to totally change the way we deal with drug use. Liberal Youth Scotland co-president Hannah Bettsworth, a final year Spanish student, has kindly translated it for us.

On 19^th April next year, United Nations member states will hold a special session in New York to discuss the future of the world’s drugs policy. The starting pistol for government negotiations around the summit was fired last week, in a meeting at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna.

The last time an event of this importance was held, in 1998, the meeting was dominated by US Government strategy, which still consisted of the doomed ‘war on drugs’, thought up by Richard Nixon in 1971. (awkward sentence in English) The gathered member states, in a move we can today see as a false collective delusion, solemnly agreed to reach the goal of “a drug-free world in 2008.”

Of course, 2008 came around and nothing happened. Not only had production, supply and use of illicit drugs not been wiped from the Earth, trafficking continued to flourish and bring millions of dollars to organised crime. The well-intentioned efforts of law and order had had hardly any impact in the long term. Violence in origin and transit countries had skyrocketed (in Mexico alone, it is calculated that 100,000 people have died in the war on the cartels since 2006.) Around the world, millions of drug users are still hounded and incarcerated. This serves only to ruin lives – it has no deterrent effect.

It is obvious: we are losing the war on drugs. However, there are reasons to hope. In recent years, there has been a strengthening of the world movement for reform. Lead by the governments of Latin American countries that have taken the brunt of the consequences, politicians around the world have begun to call current policies into question. It’s not about a mad dash to enact new laws, but a patient and rational debate on alternative approaches that would allow for damage mitigation.

In the US, zero tolerance and massive sentences have given way to the will to let states try out different regulatory models- as they are doing in Colorado, Washington and Oregon with cannabis – and a growing concern about injustice and the social consequences of locking up thousands of (mostly black) young men for drugs offences. In Europe, governments have tended to use a more balanced and health-focused strategy, and are developing and evaluating several ideas, from complete decriminalisation to safe places for intravenous drug users to inject.

Supporters of progressive reform have a clear goal: this special UN summit must signal an unequivocal break with 50 years of policy and strategy focused on repression and punishment as solutions to the drug problem, and substitute them with other methods that prioritise improvements in health, human rights, and security. Current UN rules are outdated – a product of an era in which the US and other countries championed the same prohibitionist policy in every case – and are impeding the innovations that are so desperately needed.

It is hard to overhaul a failed policy. There is no general agreement among UN member states about the general direction of future international drugs policy. Some countries have dared to apply new strategies, but others, like Egypt, Pakistan and Russia, want to take advantage of the summit to shore up the status quo. Although the long term goal should be creating an environment allowing for sensible, fact-based reform, we are not expecting to debate UN treaty texts on the topic (which need to be passed by common consent) at this point. Having said that, what is within our grasp are paths of action like an international campaign to reduce punishments for drug users; a commitment to eliminate the death penalty for drugs offences; widening of treatment and public health programs to improve health, social inclusion and security, and international co-operation that doesn’t stop us trying out new methods, but instead facilitates them.

There is a lot at stake, and there is a real danger that we lose this chance at modernisation if we allow the most stuck-in-their-ways to stand by their attitudes and go unchallenged. Until now, European leaders have said practically nothing about international drugs policy reform. However, the European Union has numerous examples of governments that have had the courage to change the way they think about this issue: Portugal, Denmark, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Spain.  But with such a crucial chance, Europe has not unanimously defended the reforms.

When Europeans act together, we are a united bloc, with a voice the whole world listens to. Faced with the drugs problem, we must decide between defending our shared values or letting other countries with very different priorities impose theirs on us. It’s ironic that, in a field where Europe was on the cutting-edge, it now lags behind Latin America and the United States. Now is the time to regain the leadership.

I have seen first hand the governmental tendency to file drugs reform in the ‘too difficult’ category. Next year’s UN summit should act as a catalyst for politicians across the EU to give the topic the attention it deserves. For this reason, in the coming months, I will talk to my colleagues across Europe to encourage them to raise their voices.

Instead of criminalising millions of young people and setting barely realistic goals, like complete eradication of drugs, it is time for governments to look for reality-based alternatives. There is a lot to learn from the European experience. There is a strong and on-track push for reform; don’t waste it.