SDG 18: The Protection of the Food of Life
We call the plants and different substances that open a spiritual dimension to human perception by their ancient generic name: the Food of Life. Science recently has baptized them with the term entheogens, generators of the divine within.
Our civilization’s turbulent history with entheogens disqualifies it at once to be a trustworthy partner in their defense and management. We are fortunate though that in the jungles and in the remaining pockets of the planet native peoples have been able to maintain their bond with nature through their consumption of the Food of Life. What they perceive through their consumption is a dimension that we have lost in the era of their prohibition. Thousands of years of withholding the Food of Life has dulled our minds to the point that we are only able to conceive of the world of the spirit as a realm of the imagination. The living spirit that connects all of creation and informs the native peoples about their natural environment no longer manifests in the ossified civilized brains.
It is incumbent upon the world and its global organization, the UNO, to defend at all costs the knowledge about nature that native peoples have been able to preserve. Nature speaks to these peoples; their voices translate nature’s needs and will be essential in its conservation and its rescue from extinction. Therefore, and as these people have been requesting over the last decades, it is incumbent upon the United Nations to help the native communities preserve their indigenous knowledge. This knowledge is an immaterial treasure we cannot afford to lose. Our civilized blindness can no longer be an excuse to ignore the healing power that the Food of Life offers, for the individual, society and nature alike.
Even though civilized humans have lost the power of perception that the native peoples still enjoy, their use of the Food of Life opens their minds to the unconscious parts of their selves. It allows their traumatized minds to heal and offers the harmonious and happy existence known as Life by the native peoples as well as by our own ancient forebears.
After a 1961 deceitful start with the management of the world’s Food of Life, the UN have the duty to amend their erroneous “drugs” policies.
First of all, with regards to the existential value of the different entheogens, a value that should be at the basis of radically new policies about their consumption and production. Secondly, these policies should be in respect of the human rights of their users, taking their mental health and happiness as their goal
Based on these considerations we propose the following targets for the protection of the Food of Life:
The targets of the Sustainable Development Goal 18
Target 18.1 - Food of Life: UN competence
Consideration
Thanks to the persistence of prohibition, the War on Drugs is still raging at an alarming rate; we must switch from a model that is based on the prohibition of mind-altering substances to a system that values the availability of all the world's medical resources for all the people that need them.
The reality of the resilient demand for mind-altering substances must be the basis of a rational discussion on the responsible regulation of the world medicines markets.
To this end, all partners in the necessary multilateral process of change should be willing to recognize and respect the contribution of entheogens to the maintenance of biodiversity, including the respect for human and post-human rights
As the defense of the spiritual dimension that the Earth provides to humanity completely lacks in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, a final “SDG 18: The Protection of the Food of Life” has to be added to the Agenda 2030.
Proposal
As the United Nations stand at the centre of the multilateral task of weaving humanity together in a community of shared ideals and common belonging, the UN World Health Organization should take the lead in the promotion of the “SDG 18: The Protection of the Food of Life”.
Target 18.2 – Right to freedom of consumption
Consideration
What would habitual consumers of entheogenic substances like to change, to enjoy their mind-altering experience without being frowned upon, insulted, bullied, robbed, beaten, arrested, jailed or killed. What is the hidden dream of the millions of people who continuously live in fear of the cop or the criminal, able to end arbitrarily and with impunity their feelings of happiness and belonging, capable to destroy their lives and those of their families?
The regulation of their use of the substance of their choice with respect for their rights to freedom of religion, of speech and of fear granted by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Proposal
By 2030, the adoption of a drugs peace convention on the right to freedom of consumption, including cultivation, production and distribution of consciousness altering substances, and the enjoyment of all other human rights and fundamental freedoms, without distinction based on consumption preference.
The exercise of the right to freedom of consumption can of course be restricted, but only by law and when necessary, in a democratic society to serve an evidence-based, legitimate aim of public interest.
Target 18.3 – Public Information on the Food of Life
Consideration
History shows us that the monopolization and prohibition of the use of the Food of Life has been worldwide, in many disguises and according to the wishes of the rulers of the day. It is incumbent on the UNO to facilitate the worldwide information on the history and proper use of the different substances, guided by experts from indigenous user groups and representative contemporary activist associations.
Proposal
By 2030, the inclusion in a drugs peace convention of the constitutional obligation of the UN members to organize the facilitation of transfer of information about the Food of Life, substance by substance, along the following guiding principles :
- The information will be provided on a yearly basis
- by the World Health Organization
- upon consultation with user expert groups with consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)
- upon consultation with and approval by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Target 18.4 – Indigenous peoples rights to entheogens
Consideration
As the different entheogens are used for individual spiritual well-being their cultivation, production and administration should remain as much as possible in the public domain and never be exclusively controlled by political and financial interests. The competent authorities should safeguard native peoples’ rights over the endemic plants of their territory and over the traditional, ancestral knowledge pertaining to their use and conservation.
In recent years, there has been an increase in legal incidents related to ancestral medicines, especially ayahuasca. Throughout 2023, the Ayahuasca Defense Fund (ADF) provided legal assistance in 43 incidents across 15 countries, mainly defending individuals in criminal cases involving the importation of ayahuasca and coca leaves for medical reasons. This highlights the tensions between traditional practices and modern legal frameworks that often fail to recognize the cultural and medicinal significance of these plants.
Proposal
By 2028, regulate in the context of the prevailing international human rights instruments:
- the rights of indigenous peoples to cultivate, access and consume the entheogenic plants
endemic to their habitat,
- the protection of these plants from extraction and depletion by commercial interests, and
the recognition of the indigenous peoples’ authority over the seeds and the associated
traditional knowledge of these plants.
Target 18.5 - Overcoming stigmatization of Food of Life
Consideration
The widespread stigmatization of substance use disorder, of substance use itself and of the substances can be reduced if the medical professionals and the general public modify their language with a consistent use of agreed-upon terminology which will aid precise and unambiguous clinical and scientific communication and help reduce discriminatory public health and social policies.
The use of language that gives dignity and respect to those suffering from substance use disorders should start with the Administrations and Institutions in charge of public policy definition and execution in all their communications with the general public, beginning with their own names and organizational accommodation.
Proposal
By 2030, the organization of the transfer of all non-crime related drugs subject-matters from the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), henceforth the UN Office of Crime, in Vienna to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva.
Target 18.6 - Transitional Justice for War Recovery
Consideration
The present War on Drugs follows the historical template established since the encounter between Adapa and god Anu, back in the early Mesopotamian civilization, as the motivation and the methods are still the same: the muzzling of the wisdom-providing voice from the heart through the prohibition of the mind liberating plants of the Earth, using the lie as an argument. The 1961SC Preamble posits the inevitability of addiction to all substances mentioned in the convention, while many of these substances have a long tradition of spiritual healing.
In the same second half of the twentieth century, we have also witnessed the growth and flourishing of human and peoples' rights but, here too, their continued violation in accordance with the policies of the rulers. The positive result of this discord is the possibility to objectively measure the injustice against the formally accepted human rights standard. The awareness of great social injustice that results in legitimate grievances that disrupt society can thus translate into a broad awareness of the need for recovery. The way to deal with this appears to be Transitional Justice, an approach that emphasizes the duties of states and the rights of victims in seeking reconciliation.
In the case of the War on Drugs, which affects the global community with the full range of criminal manifestations, transitional justice will have to be tackled in its own way. With innovative judicial solutions driven by local and regional actors that reflect priority dynamic local policies rather than one-size-fits-all or heavy interventions that call on foreign expertise. This does not alter the fact that this war against users is centrally driven from the UN and therefore requires a joint response at that central level. In this way, the UN itself can expose the proposal for repair of its immoral policies in this matter and restore its credibility.
Proposal
By 2030, the development of international transitional law to cover the transition period from prohibition to health-focused drug control policies in the fastest possible way, including the formulation of an offer for pardon from the United Nations for the injustice done to all people that have been criminally or administratively prosecuted for personal use and cultivation and production of mind-altering substances and proposals for expungement of criminal records and the reparation of financial loss and physical damage.
Target 18.7 – Scope of Genocide
Consideration
Widely regarded as the epitome of human evil, genocide suffers from a fixed definition. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or ethnic group" through, for example, "the disintegration of its political and social institutions, of its culture, language, national sentiments, religion and economic existence." During the struggle to ratify the Genocide Convention, powerful countries limited Lemkin's definition to exclude their own actions from being classified as genocide, ultimately narrowing the definition to any of five "acts - from killing members of the group to forcibly transferring children of the group to another group - committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." Since the Convention's adoption in 1948, the definition has been a matter of debate.
The Drugs Peace Institute holds that the limitation to the four categories of groups - nation, ethnicity, race and religion - allows the perpetrator to hide these motives behind other not-accepted grounds for recognition of genocide. Such as the whole range of atrocities committed in the War on Drugs on a permanent basis on the many local theatres of war under the guise of "zero tolerance" for drug use and drug users. Which ultimately translates in the extinction of these users as members of a group defined by the UN Drug Conventions. Every act that contributes to the annihilation of the group of people in the world who identify by their consumption preference for prohibited medicines should be qualified as "genocide constitutive" even when there exists no criminal liability in international law for the specific act.
Thus, it is not the perpetrator's alleged motive but the pattern of perpetrated actions that should decide on the qualification of genocide. The history of the War on Drugs provides a plethora of qualifying actions.
In today's terminology, any Filipino may be suspected of drug use at any moment of the day by any fellow countryman who therewith has an instant presidential "license to kill" the suspect, who therefore should be protected against genocide just like any Palestinian living in Gaza who may be suspected of harboring unknowingly a member of Hamas under his bed in the basement of his house and must also fear for the worst.
Proposal
By 2030, the extension of the definition of genocide to include all categories of human groups selected by governments or other private or public entities vested with state power for their extermination by all modern means at their disposal.
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