A/HRC/30/36 III. Thematic issues A. Detention in the context of drug control 1. Drug policies and arbitrary detention 57. In the light of communications received and findings resulting from country visits, the Working Group notes with concern the increasing, and in some cases, systematic, instances of arbitrary detention as a consequence of drug control laws and policies. 2 The Working Group believes it is topical and necessary to further examine the relationship between drug control and arbitrary detention. 58. Arbitrary detention for drug offences or use can occur across criminal and administrative settings, particularly when procedural safeguards are absent.3 The Working Group attaches particular importance to the fact that criminal and administrative detention for drug control purposes has a disproportionate impact on vulnerable groups, such as women, children, minority groups and people who use drugs.4 59. The Working Group has expressed its concern about the frequent use of various forms of administrative detention that entail restrictions on fundamental rights, and considers to be worthy of attention detention imposed as a means of controlling people who use drugs, especially when such detentions are framed as health interventions. States have incorporated such detention into national legislation based on perceived notions that drug use in itself endangers the life of the person who uses, as well as the lives of others. 5 This translates into administrative drug detention justified on the basis of health grounds, which can lead to involuntary commitment or compulsory drug treatment that is unsupported by either international drug control conventions or international human rights law.6 The Working Group has noted as particularly worrisome instances of arbitrary detention in Brazil7 and East Asia8 in the context of the compulsory confinement of people who are 2 3 4 5 6 7 See, for example, Julie Hannah and Nahir de la Silva, “Human rights, drug control and the UN special procedures: preventing arbitrary detention through the promotion of human rights in drug control” (International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy, 2015). Available from www.hrdp.org/files/2015/02/02/WGAD.FINAL_.30_Jan_2015_.pdf. Of the 64 reports of the Working Group, including annual and country reports, 35 have made explicit reference to drug-related practices. See, for example, E/CN.4/1998/44/Add.2, paras. 81 and 97–99 and A/HRC/27/48/Add.3, paras. 111– 119. See, for example A/HRC/16/47/Add.3, A/HRC/4/40/Add.3, A/HRC/27/48/Add.3, E/CN.4/2004/3/Add.3, A/HRC/10/21/Add.3, E/CN.4/2006/7 and A/HRC/27/48. See, for example, A/HRC/4/40/Add.5, para. 92, E/CN.4/1998/44/Add.2, para. 81, and A/HRC/27/48/Add.3, para. 111. Nowhere in the three international drug control conventions (Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961; Convention on Psychotropic Substances, 1971; United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, 1988) is compulsory treatment or involuntary commitment for drug use required, and throughout the treaties penal responses and the use of treatment is subject to international and domestic law. For further discussion, see Hannah and de la Silva, “Human rights, drug control”. In the State of São Paulo, compulsory confinement of addicts of crack cocaine and other drugs has been introduced in an effort to bring users on the street into detention. At the time of the Working Group’s visit to São Paulo, 5,335 persons were detained in compulsory confinement. On 4 January 2013, the Governor of the State of São Paulo announced a new regional plan to fight drug consumption whereby crack users would be put in compulsory psychiatric confinement. To manage confinement, a standing court was established. In a police operation in a neighborhood of São Paulo, more than 2,000 crack users were arrested. (See A/HRC/27/48/Add.3, paras. 113–114.) 17