PRESS BRIEFING ON 2003 NARCOTICS CONTROL BOARD

PRESS BRIEFING ON 2003 NARCOTICS CONTROL BOARD

While most drug-related crime at the community level was nonviolent and petty, illicit drugs had created dangerous “no-go” zones in many localities, according to Vincent McClean, New York representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, who briefed correspondents at Headquarters Tuesday on the 2003 annual report of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB).

The principal function of the INCB, he said, is to monitor member States compliance with the various treaties related to illicit traffic in controlled substances.  Nearly every country in the world was a signatory to at least one of those treaties.  The Board’s report also assessed the functioning of national and international drug control systems. 

The 2003 report, he said, focused its opening chapter on the impact of drug abuse in communities where, as competing groups vied for market and product, the middle class was driven out.  In some locations, drugs then become the only tenable economic activity.  To remedy such effects, the report calls for employment and education programmes targeting the poor, young people and minorities

In regard to harm-reduction measures – that is, actions taken to reduce the negative consequences of drug abuse – he said that the INCB supported measures to reduce HIV transmission.  It was important, however, that those measures did not promote or facilitate drug abuse.

The report also noted an increase in illicit trafficking over the internet, he said.  In that area and in regard to synthetic drugs, the INCB was working with governments to prevent illicit diversions of both legal and illegal drugs and their precursor chemicals.  On the other hand, the Board was working with countries to improve the availability of drugs for the treatment of pain.  Currently, 80 per cent of the world’s population had available to it only 6 per cent of the morphine.

In response to questions about the Board’s position on decriminalizing marijuana and other drugs to reduce crime, Mr. McClean replied that there had not yet been an evaluation of such decriminalization.  So far there had been merely some movement toward lowering penalties for cannabis in Canada and in some parts of Europe.  The INCB’s feeling was that measures taken in Canada might give the wrong message; that cannabis was not illegal.  In addition, the cannabis available now was stronger and its addictive dangers could not be underestimated. 

The European position, he said, had caused some concern in a number of African countries that were suffering from severe drug problems.  If some countries were seen as liberalizing drug laws, they felt it undermined their own drug efforts.

Asked why the report chose to focus on gangs in Brazilian communities, while gangs were taking over Haiti, Mr. McClean said that Brazil was used purely as an example to draw attention to the effects of drug-related violence on communities.  He had no specific figures about illicit drug transshipment through Haiti.

One correspondent wondered why there was no definitive stand taken on needle distribution after so many years.  Mr. McClean replied that harm reduction remained a controversial issue.  The Board was making clear that governments have to take measures to stop the spread of HIV infection through drug use, and needle exchange was part of that.  But it had to caution governments against inadvertently promoting drug use.  Needle distribution centres, for example, had occasionally become centres for drug dealing.

In response to a question about reasons for the rising popularity of synthetic drugs, such as “crystal meth”, he said that the Board had not yet made a comprehensive study of the issue.  However, the report noted that consumption and arrests were up, along with alarming side effects, such as damage to children living above meth labs.  Undoubtedly one factor affecting the popularity of such substances was their profitability, along with the relative availability of the chemicals that go into making them.  They had become a major problem in East Asia, where they were produced mainly in China and Myanmar.

A correspondent asked whether tighter border controls, resulting from the war on terrorism, had helped control the illicit flow of drugs.  Mr. McClean said that there was some anecdotal information on drug seizures resulting from such controls, but he had no comprehensive figures.  He could also not provide specific information, he said, in response to further questions on drug laundering in the Bekaa valley of Lebanon and the percentage increase in illicit internet sales of drugs.  He said that the INCB press release listed several countries in which internet sales had increased, however.

Finally, in response to a question about Turkmenistan, Mr. McClean said that he could not speculate over why the Government of that country did not participate in a number of international drug control activities, as noted in the report.  However, he said, the report did urge Turkmenistan to join the international community in the fight against drugs. 

* *** *