Convention on Psychotropic Substances: Encyclopedia II - Convention on Psychotropic Substances - History

Convention on Psychotropic Substances - History

International drug control began with the 1912 International Opium Convention, a treaty which adopted import and export restrictions on the poppy's psychoactive derivatives. Over the next half-century, several additional treaties were adopted under League of Nations auspices, gradually expanding the list of controlled substances to encompass cocaine and other drugs and granting the Permanent Central Opium Board power to monitor compliance. After the United Nations was formed in 1945, those enforcement functions passed to the UN.

In 1961, a conference of plenipotentiaries in New York adopted the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which consolidated the existing drug control treaties into one document and added cannabis to the list of prohibited plants. In order to appease the pharmaceutical interests, the Single Convention's scope was sharply limited to the list of drugs enumerated in the Schedules annexed to the treaty and to those drugs determined to have similar effects.

During the 1960s, a wave of drug use spread across Western developed nations, to the point where it appeared to alarmed policymakers to be reaching epidemic proportions. Inspired by Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, and a host of other psychedelic avatars, young people began using hallucinogenic, stimulant, and other drugs on a widespread scale. In many jurisdictions, police had no laws under which to prosecute users and traffickers of these new drugs; LSD, for instance, was not prohibited federally in the U.S. until 1967.

In 1968, "[d]eeply concerned at reports of serious damage to health being caused by LSD and similar hallucinogenic substances," the UN Economic and Social Council passed a resolution calling on nations to limit the use of such drugs to scientific and medical purposes and to impose import and export restrictions^[1]. Later that year, the UN General Assembly requested that ECOSOC call upon the Commission on Narcotic Drugs to "give urgent attention to the problem of the abuse of the psychotropic substances not yet under international control, including the possibility of placing such substances under international control"^[2].

Circa 1969, with use of stimulants spiraling out of control, ECOSOC noted with considerable consternation that the Commission "was unable to reach agreement on the applicability of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961 to these substances"^[3]. The language of the Single Convention and its legislative history precluded any interpretation that would allow international regulation of these drugs under that treaty. A new convention, with a broader scope, would be required in order to bring those substances under control. Using the Single Convention as a template, the Commission prepared a draft convention which was forwarded to all UN member states. The UN Secretary-General scheduled a conference for early 1971 to finalize the treaty^[4].

Meanwhile, countries had already begun passing legislation to implement the draft treaty. In 1969, Canada added Part IV to its Food and Drugs Act, placing a set of "restricted substances," including LSD, DMT, and MDA, under federal control. In 1970, the United States completely revamped its existing drug control laws by enacting the Controlled Substances Act (amended in 1978 by the Psychotropic Substances Act, which allows the U.S. drug control Schedules to be updated as needed to comply with the Convention). In 1971, the United Kingdom passed the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. A host of other nations followed suit. A common feature shared by most implementing legislation is the establishment of several classes or Schedules of controlled substances, similarly to the Single Convention and the Convention on Psychotropic Substances, so that compliance with international law can be assured simply by placing a drug into the appropriate Schedule.

The conference convened on January 11, 1971. Nations split into two rival factions, based on their interests. According to a Canadian Senate report, "One group included mostly developed nations with powerful pharmaceutical industries and active psychotropics markets . . . The other group consisted of developing states...with few psychotropic manufacturing facilities"^[5]. The organic drugmaking states that had suffered economically from the Single Convention's restrictions on cannabis, coca, and opium, fought for tough regulations on synthetic drugs. The synthetic drug-producing states opposed those restrictions. Ultimately, the developing states' lobbying power was no match for the powerful pharmaceutical industry's, and the international regulations that emerged at the conference's close on February 21 were considerably weaker than those of the Single Convention.

The Convention's adoption marked a major milestone in the development of the global drug control regime. Over 59 years, the system had evolved from a set of loose controls focused on a single drug into a comprehensive regulatory framework capable of encompassing almost any mind-altering substance imaginable.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki