The UN drug treaties revisited

Abstract

In the run-up to the 2003 ministerial meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) the question whether the UN drug treaties are still (or ever were) the most effective form of legislation to deal with the problems of drugs in our modern society is being asked with more and more emphasis. At the time of writing the latest political formulation of this question came from the Greek EU presidency in its work programme for the first half year of 2003, suggesting the EU should propose a thorough evaluation of the UN drug treaties (Papandreou, 2002). But will EU member countries like France, Sweden or Italy allow the EU to take this position in Vienna at the April 2003 session of the UN CND? In May 2002 in the UK a House of Commons Select Committee recommended the British government should put the question of the legalisation of drugs on the agenda of that same CND (House of Commons Select Committee, 2001). But the UK government showed no eagerness to follow that advice. And almost 2 years ago, in the March 2001 session of the CND it was the Netherlands delegation that put forward the idea that the CND should study the tension that seemed to have developed between the stipulations with regard to cannabis in the UN treaties and the practices and patterns of cannabis use that could be observed in many member states. The representative of the Netherlands spoke of the need to build bridges between the ideology reflected in the international drug control treaties and the practices of consumption, the differences between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ drugs and the need to review the issue of reclassification of cannabis, including a scientific study by the World Health Organization (WHO) of the effects of cannabis on health. (E/CN.7/2001/12/Rev.1, para. 18) This was a proposal that was not heard of again, killed as it was on the spot by the US delegate, who declared that for the USA cannabis was a hard drug. From the point of view of a drug policy reform activist*/which I am, more than a professional or recreational drugs expert*/the above three examples can be interpreted both optimistically and pessimistically. Sure, there are many positive developments in many UN member states that go against the strict prohibitionist interpretations of the UN drug treaties. And certainly, in the months and years to follow the question of the relevance and even legitimacy of these treaties for dealing with the present day problems of drugs use and the drugs trade, will be asked with increasing poignancy in many newspaper articles, parliamentary debates and conferences organized by nongovernmental organisations in the field of drug policy reform. Yet, when we read the three contributions in this issue of the IJDP, written by Bewley-Taylor (2003) and Fazey (2003) (Jelsma, 2003) only fairly pessimistic conclusions seem to be allowed with regard to the possibility of changing the system from within. Both the stipulations of the treaties themselves and the culture that has been allowed to develop within the UN agencies in charge of ‘servicing’ these treaties, as well as the diplomatic relationships and field of forces among the most important (groups of) member states that play an active role on this issue, do not favour a modern approach to the social policy problems that the treaties pretend to deal with. The modern management tools of evaluation and bench marking seemed to be taboo in a dark corner of the UN system called the UNDCP, and had to be brought into the open by a number of whistleblowers including the German Michael von der Schulenburg. The United Nations International Drugs Control Programme was indeed shown to be a dismal shambles * Corresponding author. Tel.: /31-703558578; fax: /31620955028. E-mail address: jantasvd@xs4all.nl (J.G. van der Tas). 1 Former Netherlands Ambassador to Syria and to Germany and a member of the board of the Netherlands Drug Policy Foundation (SDB). International Journal of Drug Policy 14 (2003) 197 /199