The inaugural Global Drug Policy Index was released by the Harm Reduction Consortium, on November 7, 2021.

Key Points

• In this index, Norway, New Zealand, Portugal, the UK and Australia are the five leading countries with respect to humane and health-driven drug policies.
• Five lowest-ranked countries are Brazil, Uganda, Indonesia, Kenya, and Mexico.

India’s rank

• India has been ranked at 18^th position out of 30 countries.
• India got an overall score of 46/100.
• On “use of extreme sentencing and responses” criteria, India scored 63/100.
• On health & harm reduction, it scored 49/100.
• On proportionality of criminal justice response, it got 38/100.
• On availability & access of internationally controlled substances for relief of pain & suffering, India scored 33 /100.

What is Global Drug Policy Index?

The Global Drug Policy Index is a data-driven analysis of drug policies and their implementation across the world. The index comprises of 75 indicators and it run across five broad dimensions of drug policy namely- criminal justice, health & harm reduction, access to internationally controlled medicines, extreme responses, and development.