Drug abuse: Tendencies and ways to overcome it
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The UN Convention of 1988:
The 1988 Convention regulates questions relating to the illegal
trafficking of drugs and psycho tropes. The aim of this Convention is to
promote cooperation between the contracting parties so as to more
effectively solve various problems involving worldwide illegal drug
trafficking, curtail its size and prevent its grave consequences. The
Convention particularly emphasizes the danger of the proliferation of
illegal drug trafficking and the involvement of children in it. It points
to the need to ensure control of easily accessible substances and those, which are used to make narcotics illegally.
Special attention is paid to the need to improve international cooperation to block illegal drug trafficking at sea. The Convention envisages steps to prevent a certain number of offenses.
The contracting parties are expected to adopt necessary legislative and organizational steps. The following provisions seem to be the most interesting.
The Notion of Illegal Drug Trafficking:
Firstly, there is a provision, bearing the form of a recommendation, for member states that national legislation should recognize certain
premeditated actions included by the Convention into the notion of "illegal
trafficking" as common crimes. Actions that violate the 1961 Convention
(with amendments) include: production, manufacture, preparation, offer for
sale, distribution, sale, delivery on any terms, middleman services, shipping, transit shipping, transportation, and importation or exportation
of any narcotic. Other actions which should be recognized as crimes are the
cultivation of specially indicated narcotic-bearing plants in order to turn
out drugs; storing or purchasing any narcotic for illegal trafficking;
making, transporting or distributing equipment, materials or substances for
the purpose of illegal cultivation, production or manufacture of narcotics;
organization, guidance or financing of any offenses listed above;
conversion or transfer of property obtained from the above mentioned
offenses in order to conceal or cover up an illegal source of property or
in order to help a person who is taking part in committing the listed
offenses to evade responsibility for his actions; concealment or secrecy of
the true nature of the source, whereabouts, arrangement method, transfer of
the rights in relation to property or its belonging if it is known that
this property is gained as a result of the listed offenses; possession of
equipment or materials needed to illegally cultivate, produce or make any
narcotic; public encouragement or incitement of other persons by any means
to commit any of the above-mentioned offenses; participation or involvement
in a criminal collusion in order to commit the mentioned offenses, as well
as accomplice, incitement, assistance or advice during their commission;
and intentional storage, acquisition or cultivation of any narcotic for
personal use in defiance of the provisions of the 1961 Convention (with
amendments).
Secondly, there is a provision concerning matters of responsibility and punishment of people convicted of dangerous drug-related crimes. This provision recommends such sanctions as imprisonment or the deprivation of freedom, as well as additional measures in the form of rehabilitation, restoration of the ability to work, or social reintegration with subsequent supervision.
Controlled Deliveries:
Thirdly, there is a provision about the use of controlled deliveries at the international level based on mutual accords. Controlled delivery is a method under which exportation, transportation or importation of illegal or suspicious batches of drugs are allowed on the territory of one or several countries with the knowledge and under the supervision of competent agencies in order to identify the participants in these offenses.
Most norms covered by international conventions are part of the laws of the Russian Federation, and more of these norms may be registered in the future provided there are suitable conditions.
Measures to Prevent Drug Money Laundering:
There are two documents, which have been mentioned earlier that are
very important in controlling drug abuse because they affect the "sore
points" of narco-business. Both of these documents need to be applied in
the Russian Federation. One, from 12th December 1988, is a statement by the
Committee on Banking Rules and Banking Supervision. Its aim is to prevent
the criminal use of the banking system for laundering money gained from the
trade in drugs. The other is the decision by the heads of state and
government of the 7 leading industrial countries and by the European
Commission Chairman. Under this decision taken at the 15th Economic Summit
in Paris in July 1989, a Special Operations Group on financial issues was
set up.
It must also be noted that the past few years have seen the convocation
of numerous official and unofficial conferences, symposia and meetings of
experts specializing in combating drug abuse, including one held in 1996 in
Baku. They all worked out and recommended for implementation various
measures to control narcotics.
Par. 2. Tendencies in the World Community's Reaction to Drug Abuse.
The world community counteracts the negative tendencies of drug abuse.
This can be clearly seen in the materials of the world fora and in the
international legal acts.
The Overriding Tendency of Combating Drug Abuse:
The overriding tendency is the expanding scale, and improvement of
activities, as well as of the international legal regulations combating
drug abuse. The core of this tendency is expressed in the following
trajectory from the study of drug abuse, and exerting influence by the
world community through establishing international control over legitimate
distribution and consumption of drugs, to the adoption and implementation
of the increasingly diversified, detailed, rationalized and tough measures
combating illegal drug trafficking and criminal drug money laundering.
These measures are being worked out by international agencies and
organizations and are aimed at fully blocking the spread of narcotics.
This overall tendency can be seen in several of its more concrete manifestations, such as bringing the problem of narcotics to the forefront; expanding the sphere of the international legal regulation by amending existing measures and approving new international legal norms; making actions against drug abuse more purposeful by revealing its most vulnerable spots and controlling them by using new, more perfected international legal norms; ensuring a more universal, unified and standardized understanding of international legal terms regulating narcotics and; adopting international legal norms that pave the way for a real opportunity to combat narcotics; bringing international and national legal acts in line concerning actions against narcotics in the process of nations joining international legal acts and ratifying them; increasing the number of countries taking part in international conferences on actions against narcotics and the number of countries joining international legal acts and setting up and expanding the functions of specialized international agencies that work to combat narcotics.
Bringing to the Foreground Problems of Combating Drug Abuse:
Nearly 80 years since the convocation of the Shanghai Opium Commission in 1909, the first official body on the international scene that had drawn attention to the problems of narcotics, its regulation and gradual restriction, public attention to the problem has been steadily growing in proportion to the rise in the degree of public danger and the spread of narcotics. This is manifested by the increasing number of conferences, meetings, and symposia that concentrate on working out and adopting various international legal acts regulating measures to combat narcotics along with producing recommendations aimed at improving these types of measures and their application.
Expanding the Sphere of International Legal Regulation:
Expanding the sphere of international legal regulation means that each
successive forum and each new international legal act against narcotics has
focused on such areas of drug abuse, which have not been previously subject
of international regulation.
In particular, the 1912 Hague Convention was the first to define types
of narcotics - raw opium, smoke opium, medicinal opium, morphine and some
others, which were placed under international control. Later this list was
expanded. Under the Convention of 19th February 1925, some additional raw
materials such as coca leaves, raw cocaine and Indian hemp (cannabis) were
included. Also any other drug capable of causing harmful affects, according
to the finding of a competent body, could be added to the list. Under the
Protocol of 19th November 1948 the list was further extended by synthetic
drugs that had come into being by that time and had not been regulated by
any of the previously adopted international legal acts. The 1961 Uniform
Convention contained a much longer list of narcotics allowing for further
subsequent changes and additions.
The 1912 Hague Convention obliged the participating countries to pass
national legislation controlling the production, distribution, importation
and exportation of raw opium as well as measures scaling down production, domestic trade and consumption of smoke opium, banning its import and
export. The Agreement of 11th February 1925 envisaged setting up a
government monopoly for opium production and monopoly associations for
opium trade. The Geneva Convention of 19th February 1925 introduced new
measures, such as exercising control over the activities of persons who
held permits to manufacture, import, export, sell, distribute and apply
narcotics, as well as control over the premises where these persons
practiced their trade. The Convention also limited the number of ports, cities and other populated centers through which the import and export of
drugs was allowed, and urged the adoption of domestic legislation
qualifying violation of these provisions of the Convention as criminal
offence. The Convention of 13th July 1931 formulated the following
additional measures: extradition of criminals for committing drug-related
crimes; setting up domestic government agencies to implement the
Convention's decisions and regulations, supervision over the trade in drug-
bearing medicines, listed in the Convention, and a clamp-down on illegal
drug trafficking. The Bangkok agreement of 27th November 1931 contained
such amendments as limiting retail opium trade to government agencies only.
For persons under 21 years of age visiting opium dens, was a criminal
offence. The Convention of 26th June 1936 was the first to introduce the
word "struggle" and provided for a much wider range of criminal drug-
related offenses. Under the Protocol of 19th November 1948, the signatories
had to inform the UN about any substance that had the potential of being
abused in the future.
The 1961 Uniform Convention (with amendments) broadened international legal norms, over new aspects of drug abuse. For example, it established a special procedure for cultivating narcotic-bearing plants and manufacturing narcotic substances, it established uniform rules for storing drugs. These procedures bound the signatories to cooperate with each other and with authorized international organizations in arranging and holding campaigns against illegal drug trafficking, and in applying imprisonment and against those guilty of premeditated drug-related crimes.
The 1988 UN Convention contained recommendations to define concrete
premeditated actions as crimes in national legislation. An extended list of
these crimes was included into the concept "illegal drug trafficking." The
Convention also listed such measures as medical treatment of addicts, restoration of their working capabilities or social re-integration under
subsequent supervision. The Convention outlined recommendations on using
controlled deliveries at the international level on the basis of mutual
accords.
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