46th ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting on Drug Matters and Its Related Meetings

Singapore’s Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs, Mr K Shanmugam, was the Guest-of-Honour at the opening ceremony on 26 August and delivered the opening speech. In his speech, he underscored that the global drug situation continued to worsen, with over 300 million people reported to have abused drugs in 2023, representing an 8% increase from the previous year. He highlighted the grave consequences of drug abuse, which claimed 600,000 lives annually worldwide, and that the drug trade had been closely linked with crimes ranging from petty offences to homicides. He cautioned that ASEAN, accounting for the vast majority of synthetic drug seizures in East and Southeast Asia, faced a critical challenge that must be addressed with urgency to safeguard its societies in the region.

The meeting was attended by all ASEAN Member States (including Timor-Leste, as an observer) and the ASOD Dialogue Partners. Namely, Australia, China, India, Japan, Republic of Korea and Russia. During the meeting, ASEAN Senior Officials and the Dialogue Partners discussed their plans and initiatives to shape regional responses against liberalizing drug attitudes, drug abuse and drug trafficking in the region. The meeting also welcomed speakers from the United Nations Office on Crime and Drugs (UNODC) and Colombo Plan Drug Advisory Programme (CPDAP) who shared on insights to the regional drug problem and initiatives to tackle them.

The meeting achieved the following, Launch of the ASEAN Drug Monitoring Report 2024; endorsement of the Guidelines for ASEAN to conduct prevalence surveys as produced by the Working Group on Research; endorsement of the concept of the ASEAN Drug Victims Remembrance Day (to be commemorated on 26 June each year, in line with the International Day Against Drug Abuse); and, endorsement of the ASEAN Joint-Statement (delivered at the 69th Commission on Narcotic Drugs) which reinforced ASEAN’s collective and coordinated efforts to tackle drug-related challenges.

Through these initiatives, ASOD hopes that ASEAN can demonstrate its solidarity amidst the worsening global drug problem and reinforce its zero-tolerance stance against drugs.