Celebrating the UN’s achievements in Drug Control – BUT more cooperation needed from Member States

Media Release

Monday 21 March 2011

Media Contact: Jo Baxter +61 403 334 002 – email:

The World Federation Against Drugs is calling for closer cooperation between Member States to ensure that the major achievements in Drug Control world-wide, are not eroded.

Some of the achievements over the past decade include:

 Over 95% of UN Member states, comprising 99% of the world population are party to the three Drug Control Conventions1.

 The relevant Conventions are the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances and the 1988 UN Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.

 One key result of this is that the diversion of controlled substances at the international level has been virtually eliminated

 Another important achievement is that governments have intensified their efforts to prevent the diversion of precursor chemicals used in the illicit manufacture of drugs2

1 http://www.incb.org/pdf/annual-report/2008/en/press/Press_release_2.pdf

2 http://www.incb.org/pdf/annual-report/2010/en/AR_2010_English.pdf

‘With even more cooperation, the leadership of the office of UNODC and the INCB will help Member states to create more signficant disruptions to manufacture and trafficking’, WFAD’s International President Sven-Olov Carlsson said today.

‘In addition, there has been consistent encouragement by the UN to countries where drug policy needs to increase its prevention focus – with clear and definitive statements about some conflicting practices.

For example: regarding Injecting Rooms or ‘Drug consumption rooms’, the INCB states that:

Facilities ‘where injecting drug abusers can inject drugs that they have acquired illicitly’ are, ‘from a legal point of view’ in violation of the international drug control conventions. Three crimes have been committed – procuring, transporting and using an illegal substance’ said Josephine Baxter, WFAD Vice President.

Further, the decriminalisation of Cannabis has lead to many young people thinking that it is a safe drug and that it is, in fact, legal. This type of confusion is difficult to turn around, once policy is in place’.

Without more cooperation with the UN from Member states on these issues, ‘in practice’ drug control policies may, inadvertently undermine the efforts of the UN. For example, according to the INCB, within the last 10 years, drug abuse prevention has been ‘modest at best’.