8/13/2019 1-s2.0-S0955395903000021-main

1/3

Editorial

Prohibition, pragmatism and drug policy repatriation

Fi v e years ago * /in 1998 * /the United Nations Gen-eral Assembly held a Special Session (UNGASS) on allaspects of the illicit use of drugs, from productionthrough to consumption. At the end of the session theGeneral Assembly adopted a Political Declaration A/RES/S-20/2 (1998) committing Member States to aseries of goals which would be e v aluated after 5 and10 years. The first of these deadlines occurs in April

2003, and the Commission on Narcotic Drugs is holdinga special 2-day high-le v el session at the end of its annualmeeting to examine the outcomes. This special issue of the International Journal of Drug Policy looks at theUN system of drug control and asks * /what prospectsare there for change?

As the UNGASS mid-term re v iew mo v es to assessprogress made towards meeting the targets set in 1998,increasing numbers of states are re v iewing their stanceon the international drug control system. In recent yearsit has become increasingly clear to many states that,despite some flexibility within the UN Con v entions on

illicit drugs, freedom to create drug policy at a nationallev el is constrained by transnational legislation. Theeffect of the 1961 Single Con v ention on Narcotic Drugsand its sister treaties is, as Harry Le v ine argues in thisissue, to produce a global drug prohibition regime(Le v ine, 2003 ).

The impact of this prohibition regime on manyproducer and consumer countries has been profound.A notable example has been the negati v e impact in thefight against AIDS. The sharing of syringes has been themain v ector for the spread of HIV in many countries.Yet the unique interpretations of the Con v entions by the

International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) thatcondemn the pro v ision of legal places where peoplemay inject illegal drugs does little to facilitate the controlof HIV transmission. This condemnation has indeedusurped the authority of nation states to decide thepriority that they put on the relati v e importance of controlling drug use and on the spread of HIV. Whilenations signed the Con v entions in good faith, contem-porary issues like HIV ha v e altered many go v ernmentspriorities. To be sure, much has changed since 1961. Theuse of drugs for leisure is today far more widespread andnormalised, now including not only cannabis but alsoecstasy and other drugs.

The response of many countries to the increasing useof se v eral recreational drugs has been to operate strictlywithin the Con v entions, making the possession of drugsfor personal use a crime, but not implementing the law,as has been the case in the Netherlands for a number of years. In any common law country where prosecution isa discretionary matter either for the police or anindependent prosecution authority, then non-prosecu-

tion can become the norm, as it has in many othercountries.

Another method employed by go v ernments to createmore policy space at the national le v el is to rely upon thearticle in the 1961 Con v ention that permits the use of any controlled drug for scientific or medicinal purposes.While the United Kingdom always permitted the pre-scription of heroin to heroin addicts as a last resort in atreatment programme, more and more countries areeither doing so, such as Switzerland and the Nether-lands, or are considering doing so, such as Canada andAustralia. The medicinal use of cannabis is also again

under consideration. Canada has authorised the medic-inal use of cannabis, thus gi v ing its use de jure status,others, such as the UK are conducting trials into itsmedicinal effecti v eness.

Such room for manoeu v re is not, howe v er, infinite.Nations mo v ing to pursue pragmatic policies are alreadypushing up against the boundaries of the treaties. Toremain within the Con v entions nations cannot legalisenon-medical use of any of the drugs under internationalcontrol. Consequently, with increasingly widespreaddiscussion of some form of legalisation comes thequestion, whither the current regime? While there is

presently hope among some observ

ers that changes tothe 1961 Single Con v ention on Narcotic Drugs and itssister treaties will e v entually come about, change caneasily be frustrated by a handful of states. Although, aswe discuss in this special issue the articles of theCon v entions lay down means by which they can bemodified or amended ( Bewley-Taylor 2003 ), it is clearthat the actual mechanisms whereby change is broughtabout is essentially a political one that can be controlledby any determined country that is against change,particularly a nation as powerful as the USA ( Drucker,2003; Fazey, 2003 ). As Martin Jelsma lucidly demon-strates efforts by Mexico and other go v ernments to re-

International Journal of Drug Policy 14 (2003) 141 /143www.else v ier.com/locate/drugpo

0955-3959/03/$ - see front matter # 2003 Else v ier Science B.V. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/S0955-3959(03)00002-1

en todos losMs bien al revs

8/13/2019 1-s2.0-S0955395903000021-main

2/3

examine the Con v entions and assess their appropriate-ness 40 years after the birth of the current system werefrustrated by a US led, and INCB supported, group of nations including Sweden and Japan ( Jelsma, 2003 ).Some authors raise questions as to whether it is e v erworth trying to change the con v entions gi v en theconstraints and ask whether international organisationscan be trusted to work in the interests of sound drugpolicy ( Oscapella, 2003 ).

Despite such resistance to change it is becoming moreev ident that the present situation of increasing domesticrecreational drug use and the impact of prohibition onproducing countries mean that not only has interna-tional control failed, but is now causing more harm thanit pre v ents, as described by Sir Keith Morris, who wasBritish Ambassador to Colombia between 1990 and1994 (Morris 2003 ). The question now is what can bedone about it, how can it be done and what is the

appropriate mechanism for change?Among the options put forward in this issue is to usethe proposed framework for tobacco control for thecontrol of cannabis, as described by Engelsmann (2003) .All the limitations on growing, distribution, ad v ertising,packaging and selling, it is argued, could equally well beapplied to cannabis as to tobacco. That does not sol v ethe problem of what to do about the other drugs undercontrol, but once one drug is treated in a morepragmatic way, others might also be, which againunderscores the reason for such efforts being put intonot only maintaining but tightening controls by thosecountries who see it in their interests to do so.

If, howe v er, the Con v entions cannot be changed, canthey be ignored, as is the case with the USA and the1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty that George W. Bushwasted little time in proclaiming to be out of date onentering the White House?

As Peter Cohen argues ( Cohen 2003 ), would a betterapproach be to treat the Con v entions as representing asimilar situation to the control of Rome o v er religiousscriptures before the Reformation? The insistence in theabsoluteness of the Con v entions may in fact encourage are v olution, because gradual change is impossible. His-torians ha v e concluded that with both the French and

Russian re v olutions, the impossibility of change, andincreasing v iolent suppression of those who soughtchange, was a major factor in build up of oppositionto the entrenched state.

If the Con v entions cannot be changed should go v ern-ments separately or together ha v e a rethink of thepresent drugs policy and the effect that it has on theirown population? The international interests of a fewcountries may not be in the national interests of others.It is perhaps time for nation states to take back thecontrol of their domestic policy in relation to drugs thatare under international control and to fashion policiesthat are appropriate both to their culture, society and

pre v ailing v alues and mores ( Reinarman, 2003 ). Statesdo not ha v e to rip up the Con v entions, they can simplytreat them in the manner in which the internationalsystem was originally de v ised, to regulate trade betweencountries. The Shanghai meeting of 1909 and the HagueCon v ention of 1912 which established the first interna-tional controls were moti v ated as much by trade andbreaking the UKs near monopoly of trade with China,as by the plight of the opium addicts. Since, howe v er,with the creation of the World Trade Organisation andthe existence of the United Nations Conference onTrade and De v elopment (UNCTAD) perhaps thesebodies might be the most appropriate ones to regulatethe trade in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.

Whate v er policies are adopted, there are bound to bedifferent policies in different countries that experiencedifferent patterns of use of, and find different means toregulate it. Where there are differential policies the

chimera of drug tourism is always raised. While theremay be some border hopping there has been no, e v enmedium scale, immigration into the Netherlands, whichis more can be said about sex trade holidays andmigration around the world. The v ariation in alcoholmanufacturing, distribution and consumption lawsaround the world testify to the practicality of differentialpolicies for one substance. Imposing one form of socialpolicy on the world in the form of drug prohibition hasnot worked and has created a great deal of harm, butlikewise, imposing another form of social policy on theworld, such as no control o v er the manufacture,distribution and consumption of all drugs at presentunder international control, might pro v e equally perni-cious. Go v ernments may not always know what is bestfor their citizens, but at least in most cases they areelected at regular inter v als, and e v entually produce apackage of measures about which there is generalagreement for at least some of the time. Included inthese measures on social and fiscal policy there shouldbe a place for policy relating to the use of drugs whichfor most people at present commit a criminal offence byusing.

Jan v an der Tas, former Netherlands Ambassador toSyria and to Germany, reminds us that the European

Union has in v ented a new word in English, and that issubsidiarity ( v an der Tas, 2003 ). It means, that decisionsshould be taken at the lowest administrati v e lev el that ispractical, in order to return decision-making away froma centralised bureaucracy to the people that it mostaffects and that any resulting action should not gobeyond what is necessary to achie v e the objecti v es of thelaw. This we suggest would not be a bad principle whenapplied to all those drugs that are at present controlledby criminal law under the aegis of international Con-v entions. Democracy, not dictatorship should be thewatchword. And the mid-term re v iew is surely theoccasion to raise these issues. We hope that the articles

Editorial 142

8/13/2019 1-s2.0-S0955395903000021-main

3/3

and responses here will encourage and inform discus-sion.

Acknowledgements

The Editors would like to thank Ian Hamilton Fazey,O.B.E., for his generous assistance in the preparation of this Special Edition.

References

A/RES/S-20/2 United Nations General Assembly Special Session,(1988). Political declaration.

Bewley-Taylor, D. (2003). Challenging the UN con v entions: problemsand possibilities. International Journal of Drug Policy 14 , 171 /179.

Cohen, P. (2003). The drug prohibition church, and the ad v enture of reformation. International Journal of Drug Policy 14 , 213 /215.

Drucker, E. (2003). Changing the global prohibition regime: time fornew terms of reference. International Journal of Drug Policy 14 ,200 /201.

Engelsmann, E. (2003). Cannabis control: the model of the WHOtobacco control treaty. International Journal of Drug Policy 14 ,217 /219.

Fazey, C. S. J. (2003). The Commission on Narcotic Drugs and theUnited Nations International Drug Control Programme: politics,policies and prospect for change. International Journal of Drug Policy 14 , 155 /169.

Jelsma, M. (2003). Drugs in the UN system. The 1998 UNGASS: anunwritten history. International Journal of Drug Policy 14 , 181 /195.

Le v ine, H. (2003). Global drug prohibition: its uses and crises.International Journal of Drug Policy 14 , 145 /153.

Morris, K. (2003). Colombia: prohibitions frontline. International Journal of Drug Policy 14 , 209 /212.

Oscapella, E. (2003). Confronting the UN drug control behemoth.International Journal of Drug Policy 14 , 203 /204.

Reinarman, C. (2003). Geo-political and cultural constraints oninternational drug control treaties. International Journal of Drug Policy 14 , 205 /208.

v an der Tas, J. (2003). The UN drug treaties re v isited. International Journal of Drug Policy 14 , 197 /199.

Wodak, A. (2003). The international drug treaties: paper tigers ordangerous behemoths. International Journal of Drug Policy 14 ,221 /223.

Cindy FazeyDepartment of Sociology,

Social Policy and Social Work Studies,Uni v ersity of Li v erpool,

Eleanor Rathbone Building,Bedford Street South,

Li v

erpool L69 7ZA,UK E-mail address: fazey@li v erpool.ac.uk ,

cindy@fazey.com

Da v id Bewley-TaylorDepartment of American Studies,

Uni v ersity of Wales Swansea,Singleton Park,

Swansea SA2 8PP,UK

E-mail address: d.r.taylor@swansea.ac.uk

Editorial 143

mailto:fazey@liverpool.ac.ukmailto:fazey@liverpool.ac.ukmailto:fazey@liverpool.ac.ukmailto:cindy@fazey.commailto:d.r.taylor@swansea.ac.ukmailto:d.r.taylor@swansea.ac.ukmailto:cindy@fazey.commailto:fazey@liverpool.ac.uk