Drug control, human rights, and the right to the highest attainable standard of health: a reply to Saul Takahashi

Flacks, S. (2011) Drug control, human rights, and the right to the highest attainable standard of health: a reply to Saul Takahashi. Human Rights Quarterly, 33 (3). pp. 856-877. ISSN 1085-794X doi: 10.1353/hrq.2011.0049

Abstract/Summary

A recent article in this journal challenged claims that a human rights framework should be applied to drug control. This article questions the author’s assertions and reframes them in the context of socio-legal drug scholarship, aiming to build on the discourse concerning human rights and drug use. It is submitted that a rights-based approach is a necessary, indeed obligatory, ethical and legal framework through which to address drug use and that international human rights law provides the proper scope for determining where interferences with individual human rights might be justified on certain, limited grounds.