Drug Legislation

A drug policy is the policy regarding the control and regulation of psychoactive substances (commonly referred to as drugs), particularly those that are addictive or cause physical and mental dependence. While drug policies are generally implemented by governments, entities at all levels (from international organisations, national or local government, administrations, or private places) may have specific policies related to drugs.

Drug policies are usually aimed at combatting drug addiction or dependence addressing both the demand and supply of drugs, as well as mitigating the harms of drug use, and providing medical assistance and treatment. Demand reduction measures include voluntary treatment, rehabilitation, substitution therapy, overdose management, alternatives to incarceration for drug related minor offenses, medical prescription of drugs, awareness campaigns, community social services, and support for families. Supply side reduction involves measures such as enacting foreign policy aimed at eradicating the international cultivation of plants used to make drugs and interception of drug trafficking, fines for drug offenses, incarceration for persons convicted for drug offenses. Policies that help mitigate the dangers of drug use include needle syringe programs, drug substitution programs, and free facilities for testing a drug's purity.

The concept of "drugs" –a substance subject to control– varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. For example, heroin is regulated almost everywhere; substances such as khat, codeine, or alcohol are regulated in some places, but not others. Most jurisdictions also regulate prescription drugs, medicinal drugs not considered dangerous but that can only be supplied to holders of a medical prescription, and sometimes drugs available without prescription but only from an approved supplier such as a pharmacy, but this is not usually described as a "drug policy". There are however some international standards as to which substances are under certain controls, in particular via the three international drug control conventions.

International drug control treaties

History

The first international treaty to control a psychoactive substance was adopted at the Brussels Conference in 1890 in the context of the regulations against slave trade, and concerned alcoholic beverages. It was followed by the final act of the Shanghai Opium Commission of 1909 which attempted to settle peace and arrange the trade in opium, after the opium wars in the 19th Century.

In 1912 at the First International Opium Conference held in the Hague, the multilateral International Opium Convention was adopted; it ultimately got incorporated into the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. A number of international treaties related to drugs followed in subsequent decades: the 1925 Agreement concerning the Manufacture of, Internal Trade in and Use of Prepared Opium (which introduced some restrictions—but no total prohibition—on the export of "Indian hemp" pure extracts), the 1931 Convention for Limiting the Manufacture and Regulating the Distribution of Narcotic Drugs and Agreement for the Control of Opium Smoking in the Far East, the 1936 Convention for the Suppression of the Illicit Traffic in Dangerous Drugs, among others. After World War II, a series of Protocols signed at Lake Success brought into the mandate of the newly-created United Nations these pre-war treaties which had been handled by the League of Nations and the Office International d'Hygiène Publique.

Finally, in 1961 the nine previous drug-control treaties in force were superseded by the 1961 Single Convention, which rationalized global control on drug trading and use. Countries commit to "protecting the health and welfare of uankind" and to combat substance abuse and addiction. The treaty is not a self-enforcing agreement: countries have to pass their own legislation aligned with the framework of the Convention.BBC: The UK's Misuse of Drugs Act (1971), 19 February 2009
/ref> The 1961 Convention was supplemented by the 1971 Convention and the 1988 Convention, forming the three international drug control treaties upon which other legal instruments rely. Contrary to common beliefs, these treaties have not particularly been influenced by the United States in their drafting, but rather by countries like France, the United Kingdom, South Africa or Egypt. Their implementation, however, has been led by the USA, in particular after the Nixon administration's declaration of "War on drugs" in 1971 and the creation of the DEA in 1973.

Current treaties

The core drug control treaties currently in force internationally are:

* the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961 (1961 Convention or Single Convention) composed of:
** the original Single Convention concluded at New York (United States), 30 March 1961, and
** its amendement, the Protocol amending the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs which was adopted in Geneva (Switzerland), 25 March 1972,
* the Convention on psychotropic substances (1971 Convention), concluded at Vienna, 21 February 1971, and
* the UN Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (1988 Convention) concluded at Vienna (Austria), 20 December 1988.

There are other treaties that address drugs under international control, such as:

* the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), concluded on 10 December 1982 in Montego Bay (Jamaica),
* the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), concluded on 20 November 1989 in New York City,
* the International Convention Against Doping in Sport concluded in Paris (France) on 19 October 2005.

Additionally, other pieces of international law enter into play, like the international human rights treaties protecting the right to health or the rights of indigenous peoples, and, in the case of plants considered as drug crops (coca plant, cannabis, opium poppy), treaties protecting the right to land, farmers' of peasants' rights, and treaties on plant genetic resources or traditional knowledge.

Treaty-mandated organizations

There are four bodies mandated under the international drug control conventions (1961, 1971 and 1988):

* The Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), a subsidiary body of the United Nations ECOSOC, the CND is acting as a conference of the Parties to the three core Conventions,
* the UN Secretary-General, whose mandate is ''de facto'' carried on by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC),
* the World Health Organization (WHO), in charge of the scientific review of substances for inclusion under, changes in, or withdrawal from control (scheduling assessment),
* the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), the treaty-body monitoring implementation and collecting statistical data.

Drug policy by country

Australia

Australian drug laws are criminal laws and mostly exist at the state and territory level, not the federal, and are therefore different, which means an analysis of trends and laws for Australia is complicated. The federal jurisdiction has enforcement powers over national borders.

In October 2016, Australia legislated for some medicinal use cannabis.

Bolivia

Like Colombia, the Bolivian government signed onto the ATPA in 1991 and called for the forced eradication of the coca plant in the 1990s and early 2000s. Until 2004, the government allowed each residential family to grow 1600m² of coca crop, enough to provide the family with a monthly minimum wage. In 2005, Bolivia saw another reformist movement. The leader of a coca grower group, Evo Morales, was elected President in 2005. Morales ended any U.S. backed War on Drugs. President Morales opposed the decriminalization of drugs but saw the coca crop as an important piece of indigenous history and a pillar of the community because of the traditional use of chewing coca leaves. In 2009, the Bolivian Constitution backed the legalization and industrialization of coca products.

Bolivia first proposed an amendment to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in 2009. After its failure, Bolivia left the convention and re-accessed with a reservation for coca leaf in its natural form.

Canada

Colombia

Under President Ronald Reagan, the United States declared War on Drugs in the late 1980s; the Colombian drug lords were widely viewed as the root of the cocaine issue in America. In the 1990s, Colombia was home to the world's two largest drug cartels: the Cali cartel and the Medellín cartel. It became Colombia's priority, as well as the priority of the other countries in the Andean Region, to extinguish the cartels and drug trafficking from the region. In 1999, under President Andrés Pastrana, Colombia passed Plan Colombia. Plan Colombia funded the Andean Region's fight against the drug cartels and drug trafficking. With the implementation of Plan Colombia, the Colombian government aimed to destroy the coca crop. This prohibitionist regime has had controversial results, especially on human rights. Colombia has seen a significant decrease in coca cultivation. In 2001, there were 362,000 acres of coca crop in Colombia; by 2011, fewer than 130,000 acres remained. However, farmers who cultivated the coca crop for uses other than for the creation of cocaine, such as the traditional use of chewing coca leaves, became impoverished.

Since 1994, consumption of drugs has been decriminalized. However, possession and trafficking of drugs are still illegal. In 2014, Colombia further eased its prohibitionist stance on the coca crop by ceasing aerial fumigation of the coca crop and creating programs for addicts. President Juan Manuel Santos (2010–2018), has called for the revision of Latin American drug policy, and was open to talks about legalization.

Ecuador

In the mid-1980s, under President León Febres-Cordero, Ecuador adopted the prohibitionist drug policy recommended by the United States. By cooperating with the United States, Ecuador received tariff exemptions from the United States. In February 1990, the United States held the Cartagena Drug Summit, in the hopes of continuing progress on the War on Drugs. Three of the four countries in the Andean Region were invited to the Summit: Peru, Colombia and Bolivia, with the notable absence of Ecuador. Two of those three countries—Colombia and Bolivia—joined the Andean Trade Preference Act, later called the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act, in 1992. Ecuador, along with Peru, would eventually join the ATPA in 1993. The Act united the region in the War on Drugs as well as stimulated their economies with tariff exemptions.

In 1991, President Rodrigo Borja Cevallos passed Law 108, a law that decriminalized drug use, while continuing to prosecute drug possession. In reality, Law 108 set a trap that snared many citizens. Citizens confused the legality of use with the illegality of carrying drugs on their person. This led to a large increase in prison populations, as 100% of drug crimes were processed. In 2007, 18,000 prisoners were kept in a prison built to hold up to 7,000. In urban regions of Ecuador as many as 45% of male inmates were serving time for drug charges; this prison demographic rises to 80% of female inmates. In 2008, under Ecuador's new Constitution, current prisoners serving time were allowed the "smuggler pardon" if they were prosecuted for purchasing or carrying up to 2 kg of any drug, and they already served 10% of their sentence. Later, in 2009, Law 108 was replaced by the Organic Penal Code (COIP). The COIP contains many of the same rules and regulations as Law 108, but it established clear distinctions among large, medium and small drug traffickers, as well as between the mafia and rural growers, and prosecutes accordingly. In 2013, the Ecuadorian government left the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act.

Germany

Compared with other EU countries, Germany's drug policy is considered progressive, but still stricter than, for example, the Netherlands. In 1994 the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that drug addiction was not a crime, nor was the possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use. In 2000, Germany changed the narcotic law ("BtmG") to allow supervised drug injection rooms. In 2002, they started a pilot study in seven German cities to evaluate the effects of heroin-assisted treatment on addicts, compared to methadone-assisted treatment. The positive results of the study led to the inclusion of heroin-assisted treatment into the services of the mandatory health insurance in 2009.

In 2017, Germany re-allowed medical cannabis; after the 2021 German federal election, the new government announced in their coalition agreement they intention to legalise cannabis for all other purposes (including recreational), although concrete legislation to this effect has not yet been introduced.

India

Indonesia

Like many other governments in Southeast Asia, the Indonesian government applies severe laws to discourage drug use.

Liberia

Liberia prohibits drugs such as cocaine and marijuana. Its drug laws are enforced by the Drug Enforcement Agency

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases