UN expert calls for legal regulation of drugs

The UN’s independent expert on counterterrorism has condemned US military strikes on suspected drug traffickers, warning that decades of prohibition have failed to weaken organised crime and calling for drug legalisation to undermine criminal profits.

Kevin Dinneen

October 26, 2026

The United Nations (UN) independent expert on counterterrorism has condemned United States (US) military strikes against suspected drug traffickers, arguing that the escalating war against drug cartels is unlawful, ineffective and fails to address the enormous profits generated by prohibition.

Professor Ben Saul, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, spoke at a press conference at UN headquarters in New York after presenting his latest report to the UN General Assembly.

Saul condemned the United States’ military strikes on vessels suspected of drug trafficking in the Caribbean and Pacific, which he said had killed at least 239 civilians in 71 attacks since September 2025.

Saul argued that the strikes violated international law and constituted crimes against humanity. He rejected the US government’s claim that the attacks were justified as acts of national self-defence.

The US government has defended its military operations as necessary measures against organisations it has designated as terrorist groups. However, Saul challenged the legal basis for treating profit-driven criminal organisations as terrorist movements.

He explained that while cartels and gangs may use violence to intimidate communities, influence political decisions or protect their operations, their primary motivation is financial rather than political or ideological.

Designating criminal organisations as terrorist groups can allow governments to deploy exceptional counterterrorism powers, including military force, asset freezes, travel restrictions and expanded surveillance.

In his report, Saul warned that these policies risk further human rights violations without addressing the underlying causes of organised crime.

He argued that governments should instead strengthen conventional law enforcement, financial investigations, international cooperation and anti-corruption measures while tackling poverty and other conditions that encourage recruitment into criminal organisations.

However, Saul’s recommendations went beyond conventional policing. Speaking at the UN, he urged governments to consider responsibly legalising certain drugs to reduce the enormous profits generated by illegal markets.

“Think about responsible legalization of certain drugs to destroy the profitability of cartels,” Saul said.

He also called for increased investment in drug education, prevention, public health and harm reduction services, arguing that governments must address demand rather than relying on increasingly militarised attempts to suppress supply.

Saul warned that decades of drug prohibition across the Americas have failed to significantly reduce the strength, profitability or violence of criminal organisations.

Steve Rolles, senior policy analyst at the Transform Drug Policy Foundation in the United Kingdom, welcomed Saul’s conclusions. He told leafie that Saul’s intervention represented an important acknowledgement of the structural relationship between prohibition and organised crime.

“Crucially, he makes the point that there is no enforcement solution – we can’t expect more of the same enforcement paradigm to magically start working and make the problem go away.” Rolles said it was significant that a UN-appointed expert had raised these concerns in an international forum where governments could reconsider their approach to drug policy.

For Rolles, the logical next step is to replace prohibition with legally regulated markets designed to reduce criminal profits while protecting public health. “Drug markets exist. We cannot eradicate them by force so we must pragmatically manage them to optimise health and social outcomes the drug war has so conspicuously failed to deliver.”

Rolles also pointed out that Saul is the latest in a series of UN-appointed human rights experts to call for fundamental changes to international drug policy.

In 2010, Anand Grover, then UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, called for the decriminalisation of drug use and expanded harm reduction services. His report also recommended that UN drug control bodies consider an alternative regulatory framework for drugs. Grover is now a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy.

More recently, in 2024, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health Tlaleng Mofokeng called for the full decriminalisation of drug use, arguing that punitive approaches undermine public health.

Saul is not the first UN expert to challenge international drug policy. Still, his warning that prohibition is helping to sustain the criminal organisations governments are fighting brings renewed attention to calls for reform that have been made for more than a decade.