IMPACT OF DRUGS ON CRIME, VIOLENCE AT FAMILY, STREET-LEVELS TO BE

FOCUS OF INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL BOARD'S 77th SESSION

(Reissued as received.)

VIENNA, 26 May (UN Information Service) -- The impact of drugs on crime and violence at the family and street-level will be the focus of attention by the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), which opened its seventy-seventh session today in Vienna.

The topic in question is also to be highlighted in the Board's 2003 Annual Report.  The INCB monitors worldwide drug abuse and the trafficking situation and issues an annual report on its findings.  Each annual report also devotes special attention to a specific drug-related issue in its lead, first chapter.  The reports of the Board are released at the beginning of each year, usually in late February.

During its current two-week session from 26 May to 6 June 2003, the Board, an independent body of 13 international experts, will also review the results of missions to the following countries:  Algeria, Cambodia, Colombia, Czech Republic, Fiji, India, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Mali, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Poland and Viet Nam.  The missions themselves were undertaken to obtain first-hand and on-site information on the national drug control situation and on the implementation of the international drug control treaties in these countries.

The Board will also review the extent to which governments have implemented recommendations made to them pursuant to missions undertaken by the Board during 2000 to the following countries:  El Salvador, Ireland, Paraguay, Russia and Senegal.

The Vienna-based Board is a quasi-judicial monitoring body for the implementation of the United Nations international drug control conventions.  It was established in 1968 in accordance with the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.  The INCB is independent of governments, as well as of the United Nations.  Its 13 members are elected by the Economic and Social Council and serve in their personal capacity, not as government representatives.  Its sessions are held in private.

The current members of the Board are:  Edouard Armenakovich Babayan (Russian Federation); Madan Mohan Bhatnagar (India); Elisaldo Luiz de Araújo Carlini (Brazil); Rosa Maria del Castillo Rosas (Peru); Philip O. Emafo (Nigeria); Jacques Franquet (France); Hamid Ghodse (Iran); Nüzhet Kandemir (Turkey); Robert Lousberg (Netherlands); Maria Elena Medina-Mora (Mexico); Alfredo Pemjean (Chile); Rainer Wolfgang Schmid (Austria); and Jiwang Zheng (China).  The Presidency of the Board is currently held by Philip O. Emafo (Nigeria).

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