Standard Agreement on Narcotic Drugs
| Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs) |
|
|---|---|
| Short title: | UN Convention against Narcotic Drugs |
| Title: | Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs |
| Date: | March 30, 1961 |
| Come into effect: | Dec 13, 1964 |
| Reference: | Chapter VI 15. UNTS and Chapter VI 18. (as amended by the protocol of March 25, 1972 ) [1] |
| Reference (German): | SR 0.812.121.0 |
| Contract type: | Multinational |
| Legal matter: | Narcotics |
| Signing: | 61 |
| Ratification : | 183 (Nov. 1, 2012) Current status
|
| Germany: | Ratified Dec. 3, 1973 |
| Liechtenstein: | Ratified Oct. 31, 1979 |
| Austria: | Joined December 14, 1978 ( Federal Law Gazette No. 531/1978 ) |
| Switzerland: | Ratified Jan 23, 1970 |
| Please note the note on the current version of the contract . | |
The standard agreement on narcotics , the only narcotic drug convention in Austria . Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs , French Convention unique sur les stupéfiants , from 1961, is an international agreement with the aim of restricting the availability of some drugs . It replaced numerous international conventions and protocols concluded between 1912 and 1953. As an international treaty, the unity agreement is binding on 180 states based on international law and, in some cases, directly determines national narcotics laws. Several articles of the single agreement were amended or supplemented by the protocol of March 25, 1972 .
overview
The standard agreement on narcotics forms the basis of global drug control to this day. It includes the plants coca , opium poppy and Indian hemp (cannabis), the plant raw materials opium , poppy straw and opiates and heroin , as well as some synthetic opioids such as methadone . It limits the cultivation, production, manufacture, extraction, preparing, possessing, offering, offering for sale, distributing, buying, selling, delivering, convey, send, performing, transport, importation and exportation of the agreement as an anesthetic (engl .: narcotic drugs ) designated substances.
The agreement is based on the conception referred to in the preamble as “knowledge”, “that narcotics addiction represents an evil for the individual and an economic and social danger for mankind”. The proponents of the unity agreement and similar earlier agreements considered the restriction on the supply of narcotics (English: supply control ) as appropriate to combat this evil. In order to reduce the consumption of undesirable drugs, the main focus was on combating cultivation and production. Accordingly, the agreement pursues a policy that is strictly based on prohibition and prohibits all non-medical and non-scientific use (Article 4). Countries with traditional drug use such as opium smoking or chewing coca, but also non-medicinal cannabis use, were granted transition periods of up to 25 years in accordance with Article 49. The prerequisite for this was that the consumption of the drug was customary in the country concerned and legal as of January 1, 1964.
The UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs and the World Health Organization were authorized to add, remove or recategorize drugs according to the four classes (English: schedules ) of the agreement. The Narcotics Control Council was tasked with overseeing global drug production, trafficking and distribution. Finally, the UNODC was given the task of monitoring the situation in the individual countries and cooperating with the local authorities.
The standard agreement of 1961 was changed by the protocol of 1972 and supplemented by further narcotics agreements: First, in 1971 with the Convention on Psychotropic Substances , which controls LSD , ecstasy and other psychotropic substances; on the other hand, in 1988 through the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances , which aims to prevent money laundering and organized crime in connection with drug trafficking .
History of origin
Even before the Second World War, the League of Nations had passed the International Opium Agreements in 1912 and 1925 and the Agreement on the Restriction of the Production and Regulation of the Distribution of Narcotic Drugs in 1931, each of which was limited to a few herbal drugs, including above all opium , coca , and cannabis their derivatives. Due to this rigid interpretation, additional agreements had to be agreed for the inclusion of additional, previously either unknown or non-hazardous substances. The associated cumbersome procedure and the lengthy ratification by the signatory states made those responsible want a more flexible solution. The first demands in this direction arose as early as 1948, but it was not until 1961 that the UN Economic and Social Council convened an assembly of representatives from 73 countries to pass an international treaty.
The unity agreement was supposed to bring together and replace nine previously concluded drug agreements. Work on the design took over ten years. At the conference for the adoption of the Single Agreement in January 1961, five parliamentary groups were formed, depending on the national interests of the states involved:
Growing countries
Countries in which drug plants were cultivated have been the focus of international control measures since the first opium agreements. At the same time, the use of herbal drugs had long been culturally accepted in these countries. For the representatives of these countries, cultivation bans meant economic losses and social unrest. India , Turkey , Greece , Afghanistan , Pakistan , Vietnam , Laos , Burma , Thailand and Yugoslavia therefore advocated rather weak cultivation and export controls. They were supported by the South American coca countries and cannabis-producing countries in the Maghreb and the Horn of Africa . They advocated national measures instead of strict international controls.
The double-faced attitude of western manufacturing countries, which only advertise and sell modern products from the western scientific, pharmaceutical and industrial sector, while trying to control herbal drugs and agricultural raw materials from other countries, met with particular criticism from the cultivation countries. In return, the producing countries therefore had a special interest in controlling synthetic opioids and so-called “psychotropic substances” such as barbiturates , amphetamines and some hallucinogens , which were not covered by the regime of the single agreement. In addition, they had their consent paid for with generous pledges for development aid so as not to bear the loss of income on their own. The group of cultivation countries was supported by a small block of predominantly Western European countries under the leadership of Great Britain ( Great Britain , Switzerland , Germany , the Netherlands , Italy , Japan ) in their demand for less control of cultivation. On the one hand, these states feared that excessive demands on the growing countries would weaken the global acceptance of the agreement, on the other hand, they feared a rise in the price of pharmaceutical raw materials. At the same time, they opposed the demands of the growing countries for the control of synthetically produced narcotics.
The producing countries were able to assert their positions in a number of areas: they defused the originally planned inspections, brought about the removal of provisions on mandatory embargoes against offending states, obtained controls on synthetic opioids and poppy straw, and they prevented a complete ban on the cultivation of cannabis. However, they had to accept restrictions on other essential points: they had to submit regular estimates of their production and consumption and nationalize the cultivation, purchase and storage of the harvest in order to exclude private individuals from owning large stocks of narcotics (Article 23). The standard agreement introduced four substance categories, so-called schedules . Herbal opiates , synthetic opioids, and simple preparations such as heroin, cocaine, and cannabis were among the strictly controlled substances in Tables I and IV, while a few synthetic narcotics such as codeine and codeine- based drugs appeared in the less strictly controlled Tables II and III. The restrictive provisions restricting cultivation and production mainly affected opium-producing countries and, to a lesser extent, coca producers, while cannabis-producing countries hardly had to fear serious sanctions (Articles 28 and 49).
Manufacturing countries
This group mainly comprised western countries such as the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Japan. These countries were more or less affected by the increasing consumption of illegal drugs. Their interest in strict control measures for the cultivation of poppy seeds, cannabis and coca was correspondingly great. At the same time, they advocated - supported by a committed pharmaceutical lobby - that similarly strict measures should not apply to the research, manufacture and sale of synthetic drugs and pharmaceuticals. In order to assert their interests, the representatives of the producing countries used the arguments of the producing countries, which they had previously rejected: there is insufficient evidence for the harmfulness of these substances, one should not prejudice potentially useful substances, and one should rather leave control to the countries, instead of calling for a global control regime.
United States
The United States was one of the manufacturing countries and had an ambivalent relationship to the single agreement. Harry J. Anslinger , head of the US Federal Bureau of Narcotics, opposed the agreement because he found it insufficient and incomplete. Anslinger's demand for comprehensive control of agricultural production turned out to be impracticable; necessary compromises undermined the goal he was striving for. In addition, the unity agreement weakened Anslinger's position as the unquestioned ruler of US drug policy. His power relied largely on his interpretation of Article 15 of the Convention on the Restriction of the Manufacture and Regulation of the Distribution of Narcotic Drugs of 1931. Article 15 required the establishment of a "special administration" to control legal and combat illegal drug trafficking; Anslinger managed to withstand all attempts to reform his authority for 30 years, relying on this article. Since the 1931 Agreement was to be replaced by the 1961 Unified Agreement, the special status of Anslinger's authority also proved to be obsolete. Anslinger therefore tried by all means to have the opium protocol of 1953 come into force, in the hope of preventing the ratifications of the 1961 unity agreement at the last moment. He stayed away from the meetings of the Narcotics Commission and from then on was represented by comparatively inexperienced delegates. Their efforts have been largely limited to combating the regulations proposed by the growing countries for the control of psychotropic substances and enforcing special regulations to allow the Coca-Cola Company to import coca leaves for the production of aromatic beverages (Article 27).
Although Anslinger managed to get the opium protocol into effect in 1953 with the accession of Greece and Turkey in 1963, he ultimately lost the fight against the supporters of the unity agreement. At the meeting of the UN Economic and Social Council in the fall of 1962, 81 states voted in favor of the single agreement, only the United States voted against. Nevertheless, the unity agreement came into force in 1964. In 1966 Anslinger's opponents in the State Department were finally able to prevail, the United States ratified the United States on May 25, 1967, and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was dissolved in 1968.
Strict control advocates
Countries such as France, Sweden, Brazil and China, in which neither the cultivation of drug plants nor the pharmaceutical industry played a major role, spoke out in favor of uniform, strict controls. On the one hand, the use of narcotics was not culturally rooted in some of these countries; on the other hand, they had to cope with the consequences of the illegal drug trade: China in particular had been confronted with the phenomenon of opium smoking since the 18th century, which is why even opium wars were fought in the 19th century were. This group of states therefore advocated strict control. Drug use should only be permitted for medical or scientific purposes.
Weak control advocate
Most of the states of the Eastern Bloc only demanded weak controls because, on the one hand, according to official reports, they were only confronted with the use of illegal drugs to a very limited extent and, on the other hand, they were not willing to accept restrictions on their sovereignty due to international agreements. B. in the form of inspections by UN delegations. On the basis of ideological convictions, drug addiction in the socialist countries was seen as a consequence of the decadent western capitalist way of life, which disappears on its own under socialism and is therefore not a worrying problem. In addition, the states of the Eastern Bloc refused to publish their own statistics on the number of drug addicts, they played down the problem or denied that they were affected. The USSR opposed the proposal to limit the number of cultivation countries so as not to hinder these countries from exploiting their agricultural resources.
Neutral group
A number of states felt little affected by the issue and took a neutral stance. These included most of the African and Central American countries, the non-coca-producing Western states, Luxembourg and the Vatican State. Depending on national interests, these states joined their respective political blocs, tried to vote against other concessions or tried to mediate between the extreme positions within the assembly. While the Soviet Union was proposing compulsory therapy for drug addicts, the Vatican feared that socialist states might misuse drug addiction allegations to persecute church-friendly circles and opposed the proposal.
Results of the 1961 conference
It took eight weeks for all of these partly contradicting interests to develop into a contract that was acceptable to all. Several proposals have been weakened; For example, mandatory embargoes against states that contravene the intention of the convention have been refrained from. The proposed limitation of the cultivation of opium to seven states, as provided for in the not yet ratified New York Opium Protocol of 1953, was also rejected. Instead, other regulatory measures were decided upon, and the Narcotics Control Council was set up to control them . A total ban on heroin and some other drugs was also given up in favor of classification as particularly dangerous, but nonetheless marketable substances.
With the standard agreement, four substance categories were created as well as a set of regulations to assign further substances to these categories in the future without having to fundamentally change the framework agreement. In addition to the opium poppy and the coca bush, cannabis was also recorded as an internationally controlled drug plant, as was previously the case in the International Opium Agreement in 1925. A global reporting system was set up in which the member states of the agreement list the narcotics they produce, import, export, store and consume have to report to the Narcotics Control Council. This regulation was also taken over from previous drug treaties in order to more easily determine the origin of illicit drug stocks.
Specifying the poppy, coca and cannabis plants by name in the text of the treaty was aimed at preventing subsequent deregulation or classification in a less strictly controlled category from the outset. In 1962, the Bulletin on Narcotics of the Narcotics Commission announced with satisfaction : “After a clearly defined transition period, the non-medical use of drugs - such as For example, smoking and eating opium, consuming cannabis (hashish, marijuana) and chewing coca leaves - be illegal everywhere. International drug control officials have fought for half a century to achieve this goal. "
On August 3, 1962, the UN Economic and Social Council ordered the issue of the commentary on the single agreement on narcotics. The comment was written by the staff of the Secretary-General of the United Nations and was intended to facilitate the interpretation of the agreement.
Entry into force and further development
The agreement came into force on December 13, 1964 and has been ratified by over 180 countries. The following countries have not ratified it: Angola , Equatorial Guinea , Kiribati , Nauru , East Timor , Rwanda , Samoa , Tuvalu , Vanuatu , Vatican City . A contracting party can terminate the agreement with effect from January 1st of the following year (if canceled between January and June) or the following year (if canceled between July and December) (Art. 46).
With the Convention on Psychotropic Substances of February 21, 1971, the list of controlled substances was expanded to include psychotropic substances such as amphetamine, barbiturate or LSD. The convention came into force on August 16, 1976.
On May 21, 1971, the UN Economic and Social Council proposed to discuss additions to the single agreement at a further conference. This conference took place in Geneva from March 6 to March 24, 1972 and resulted in the protocol of March 25, 1972 , which came into force on August 8, 1975.
The United Nations Convention against the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances , which was negotiated in Vienna on December 20, 1988 and came into force on November 11, 1990, is directed against organized crime and money laundering in connection with drugs .
In 2009, Bolivia proposed removing certain provisions relating to the coca leaf from the 1961 agreement. This proposal was rejected by the other contracting parties. On June 29, 2011, Bolivia terminated the Single Agreement with effect from January 1, 2012. It acceded to the Single Agreement on January 10, 2012, subject to Article 50 that it allowed the cultivation, trade and consumption of coca leaves in its country may. 15 contracting parties raised objections within one year, which clearly fell short of the quorum required for a rejection by a third of all states. As a result, Bolivia could be accepted as a contracting party again on January 11, 2013.
In November 2012, the President of the Narcotics Control Council ruled that legalizing the cultivation and possession of cannabis in the US states of Colorado and Washington violated the agreement. He asked the US to restore conformity with the agreement.
Exceptions
The unity agreement repeatedly emphasizes the medical importance of some of the drugs concerned. The preamble already states that “the medical use of narcotics for pain relief remains indispensable and that the measures considered necessary must be taken so that narcotics are available for this purpose”. Articles 1, 2, 4, 9, 12 and 49 deal, among other things, with the scientific and medical use of the respective substances. The signatory states are granted the right to dispense controlled substances on the basis of prescriptions requiring evidence.
Criminal provisions
According to Article 36, the contracting parties are obliged "subject to their constitutional provisions" to "take the necessary measures to prevent the cultivation, extraction, manufacture, extraction, preparation, possession, offering, sale, distribution, buying, selling, Delivering - of whatever kind - the brokering, dispatching, carrying out, transporting, importing and exporting narcotic drugs as well as any other act which, in the opinion of the Contracting Party concerned, violates the provisions of this Convention, is punishable if it is intentionally committed, as well as to punish serious offenses appropriately, in particular with prison or other types of deprivation of liberty. ”The implementation of the respective measures is incumbent on the individual states. In particular, Article 39 entitles the contracting parties to adopt stricter or stricter control measures than those provided for in the Convention.
Tables
The Single Convention lists drugs into four continuously updated tables showing the marketability restrict, to varying degrees. These restrictions decrease from Table I to Table III. Table IV is a subset of Table I and has a special status. The substances and preparations listed in it are generally not marketable. This means the order from very restrictive to least restrictive is: Table IV, Table I, Table II, Table III.
Changes in the assignment of substances are subject to the provisions of Article 3.
literature
- William B. McAllister: Drug Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century: An International History. Routledge, London / New York 2000. ISBN 0-415-17990-4 .
- David Bewley-Taylor, Martin Jelsma: Regime change: Re-visiting the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs . In: International Journal of Drug Policy . tape 23 , no. 1 , 2011, p. 72–81 , doi : 10.1016 / j.drugpo.2011.08.003 .
- Federal Council (Switzerland) : Message on the approval of the standard convention on narcotics . Bern, March 20, 1968 (BBl 1968 I, page 757, PDF file )
- UN (with the participation of Adolf Lande): Commentary on the single convention on narcotic drugs 1961 . New York 1973 (491 pages). pdf
Web links
swell
- ^ Agreement on the restriction of the production and regulation of the distribution of narcotics 1931 ( Memento of August 29, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 143 kB).
- ^ The Plenipotentiary Conference for the Adoption of a Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. In: Bulletin on Narcotics. UNODC , December 6, 2005, archived from the original on December 6, 2005 ; accessed on July 17, 2016 .
- ↑ UN: Commentary on the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (PDF; 56.9 MB)
- ↑ Annual report 2011 of the Narcotics Control Council, p. 4. (PDF; 2.0 MB)
- ↑ Benjamin Beutler: Bolivia is now legally chewing coca. Neues Deutschland, January 14, 2013, accessed April 25, 2014 .
- ↑ United Nations. CN94.2013.TREATIES-VI.18 Bolivia: Accession. 22 January 2013 (PDF)
- ↑ Referendums on marijuana. Spiegel online, November 7, 2012, accessed November 20, 2012 .
- ↑ INCB President voices concern about the outcome of recent referenda about non-medical use of cannabis in the United States in a number of states. (PDF; 31 kB) UNIS , November 15, 2012, accessed on July 17, 2016 (English).