Convention on Psychotropic Substances: Encyclopedia II - Convention on Psychotropic Substances - Schedules of Controlled Substances

Convention on Psychotropic Substances - Schedules of Controlled Substances

The Convention has four Schedules of controlled substances, ranging from Schedule I (most restrictive) to Schedule IV (least restrictive). A list of psychotropic substances, and their corresponding Schedules, was annexed to the 1971 treaty. A 2002 European Parliament report describes the Schedules as follows^[7]:

• Schedule I includes dangerous drugs claimed to create a serious risk to public health, and whose therapeutic value is doubtful or nil. It includes synthetic hallucinogens such as LSD and DMT.
• Schedule II includes stimulants of the amphetamine type, of limited therapeutic value, as well as some analgesics such as phencyclidine.
• Schedule III includes barbiturate products with fast or average effects, which have been the object of serious abuse even though useful therapeutically.
• Schedule IV includes hypnotics, tranquilizers (benzodiazepine) and analgesics, which engender an appreciable dependence, but are mainly used in therapy.

A 1999 UNODC report notes that Schedule I is a completely different regime from the other three. According to that report, Schedule I mostly contains hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD that are produced by illicit laboratories, while the other three Schedules are mainly for licitly produced pharmaceuticals. The UNODC report^[8] also claims that the Convention's Schedule I controls are stricter than those provided for under the Single Convention, a contention that seems to be contradicted by the 2002 Canadian Senate^[9] and 2003 European Parliament reports^[10].

Although estimates and other controls specified by the Single Convention are not present in the Convention on Psychotropic Substances, the International Narcotics Control Board corrected the omission by asking Parties to submit information and statistics not required by the Convention, and using the initial positive responses from various organic drug producing states to convince others to follow^[11]. In addition, the Convention does impose tighter restrictions on imports and exports of Schedule I substances. A 1970 Bulletin on Narcotics report notes^[12]:

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