COMMISSION ON NARCOTIC DRUGS TO MEET IN VIENNA, 16 - 25 MARCH
Press Release
SOC/NAR/795
COMMISSION ON NARCOTIC DRUGS TO MEET IN VIENNA, 16 - 25 MARCH
19990311 Background ReleaseVIENNA, 11 March (UN Information Service) -- Reviewing steps taken by nations to meet drug control targets set at the General Assembly special session in New York last June will be the major focus of the annual meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs -- the United Nations' main policy-making body for drug control -- from 16 to 25 March in Vienna.
The 53-member Commission will discuss progress governments have made in implementing action plans laid down at last year's special session to significantly reduce drug supply and demand by the year 2008. Nations at that event agreed to draw up strategies aimed at combating illicit drugs by the year 2003. By 2008, they were to show substantial results in cutting down on the illicit use of amphetamine-type stimulants and their precursors, eradicating illicit drug crops, promoting alternative development, reducing drug abuse, improving measures against money laundering and boosting judicial cooperation.
In a political declaration at the special session, nations were asked to report to the Commission every two years on steps they had taken to meet these drug control targets. The Commission will review guidelines set up for governments to report on progress, such as the specific format this accounting should take.
The Commission will also review substances to be controlled under the 1961 and 1971 international drug treaties. This item is of high interest to pharmaceutical companies, since any substance put under international control becomes subject to prescription and could lose considerable market value.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended that two additional substances (dihydroetorphine and remifentanil) be controlled as narcotics under the 1961 international treaty and two (l ephedrine and d,l ephedrine) as psychotropics under the 1971 treaty, which the Commission will be voting on at its current meeting.
Another crucial item on the Commission's agenda will be the report of a 13-member high-level expert group appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan on
how the United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) should be strengthened.
The report recommends restructuring the Commission into two distinct segments -- one solely concerned with executive-level decisions about the UNDCP, and the other directed specifically at drug control policy. It also suggests setting up a separate governing body for the UNDCP, which would allow developing countries to interact with the agency during the Commission's intersessional periods.
In addition, the report recommends a global drug facility, modelled on the World Environment Facility, so that international drug control projects could tap the resources of global financial institutions such as the World Bank.
If adopted, the recommendations of this expert group report would have wide-reaching consequences for the UNDCP and member countries.
The Commission will also have before it a report from UNDCP Executive Director Pino Arlacchi, which lays down the agency's priorities for the coming year at national, regional and international levels. The report will ask the Commission to approve a revised biennial UNDCP budget, which reflects a 35 per cent rise in UNDCP income for 1998 from $50 million to $70 million. The expanded budget would be used to underpin new UNDCP programmes and increase its staff by 13 per cent.
A third report to be viewed by the Commission outlines UNDCP activities over the past year, which included business plans to assist governments curb the cultivation of illicit crops and the flow of opium and heroin, especially from Afghanistan to Myanmar. The UNDCP has also developed several cross- border projects, which aim to boost drug control by training law enforcement, legal and field personnel, promote information exchange between regions and provide needed equipment.
General Assembly Special Session, June 1998
The General Assembly special session on drug control in June 1998 adopted a political declaration, a Declaration on the Guiding Principles of Drug Demand Reduction, and a resolution on measures to boost international cooperation in countering the world drug problem -- the first-ever international agreements aimed solely at examining individual and collective problems arising from drug abuse.
The political declaration called on governments to take several drug control actions within target periods. By the year 2003, member countries committed themselves to establishing drug-reducing strategies and programmes, setting up or strengthening national legislation and programmes to combat the illicit manufacture, trafficking and abuse of amphetamine-type stimulants, as
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well as their precursors, and adopting national money-laundering legislation and programmes.
They agreed to eliminate or significantly reduce the manufacture and trafficking of psychotropic substances and diversion of precursors, as well as substantially decrease drug demand and the illicit growing of the coca bush, cannabis plant and opium poppy by the year 2008.
The Declaration on the Guiding Principles contains standards to help governments set up drug demand-reduction programmes by the target date. It includes others to guide governments in establishing prevention, treatment and rehabilitation programmes, and calls for sufficient funding to support these projects.
A General Assembly five-part resolution states that the international community and relevant United Nations agencies, particularly the UNDCP, should provide drug-producing countries with financial and technical aid for alternative development. International financial institutions and regional development banks should also be encouraged to provide financial assistance for alternative development programmes.
UNDCP Activities in 1998
One of the UNDCP's major activities over the past year was the General Assembly special session on drug control in New York from 8 to 10 June. To help countries reach specific drug control targets agreed on at the special session, the UNDCP has drawn up business plans, as part of a broad strategy to globally reduce the illicit supply of and demand for drugs by the year 2008.
The business plans are based on UNDCP field experience over the past decade in eradicating illicit crops and alternative development in the Andean region and in south-east, as well as south-west, Asia. Technical programmes have been drawn up for several regions in Latin America, including alternative development plans to eliminate illicit cultivation of the coca bush drawn up with the Governments of Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, which have been supported by the Inter-American Development Bank.
In backing national drug control efforts over the past year, the UNDCP has closely cooperated with governments, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) and civil society, particularly non-governmental organizations working at the grass-roots level, as well as local communities and institutions. It has initiated programmes to counter the flow of opium and heroin, mainly from Afghanistan and Myanmar, and tackle the growing threat of amphetamine-type stimulants with members of the Economic Cooperation Organization and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN).
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The UNDCP has helped member countries apply international drug control treaties by providing training for law enforcers, national administrators, judges, magistrates and prosecutors, as well as personnel in the field of demand reduction. Subregional cross-border projects have promoted information exchange between countries, strengthened laboratories and provided needed equipment.
It has helped governments draw up drug laws aimed at precursor control and combating money laundering. The UNDCP will also be assisting them with the infrastructure for a database on drug abuse worldwide, which would include numbers of abusers, methods of abuse and patterns of drug production, as well as consumption. The database should guide governments in adopting prevention and treatment measures, as well as promoting best practices in the field.
The UNDCP held a high-level intergovernmental expert group meeting in December 1998 to discuss an action plan that would help governments significantly reduce the demand for drugs by the year 2008, as laid down in the special session. The Commission aims to begin drawing up this action plan on drug-demand reduction.
Membership of Commission
The 53 members of the Commission include Algeria, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Côte d'Ivoire, Cuba, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russian Federation, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay and Venezuela.
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