Convention on Psychotropic Substances: Encyclopedia II - Convention on Psychotropic Substances - Scheduling process

Convention on Psychotropic Substances - Scheduling process

Article 2 sets out a process for adding additional drugs to the Schedules. First, the World Health Organization (WHO) must find that the drug meets the specific criteria set forth in Article 2, Section 4, and thus is eligible for control. Then, the WHO issues an assessment of the substance that includes:

• The extent or likelihood of abuse,
• The degree of gravity in the public health and social problem, and
• The degree of utility of the substance in legitimate medical therapy.

The Commission on Narcotic Drugs makes the final decision on whether to add the drug to a Schedule, "taking into account the communication from the World Health Organization, whose assessments shall be determinative as to medical and scientific matters, and bearing in mind the economic, social, legal, administrative and other factors it may consider relevant". A similar process is followed in deleting a drug from the Schedules or transferring a drug between Schedules. For instance, at its 33rd meeting, the WHO Expert Committee on Drug Dependence recommended transferring tetrahydrocannabinol to Schedule IV of the Convention, citing its medical uses and low abuse potential^[13].

The UN Economic and Social Council is the only body with the power to alter or reverse the Commission's scheduling decisions.

In the event of a disagreement about a drug's Scheduling, Article 2, Paragraph 7 allows a Party to, within 180 days of the communication of the Commission's decision, give the UN Secretary-General "a written notice that, in view of exceptional circumstances, it is not in a position to give effect with respect to that substance to all of the provisions of the Convention applicable to substances in that Schedule." This allows the nation to comply with a less stringent set of restrictions. The U.S. Controlled Substances Act's 21 U.S.C. § 811(d)(4)^[14] implies that placing a drug in Schedule IV or V of the Act is sufficient to "carry out the minimum United States obligations under paragraph 7 of article 2 of the Convention". This provision, which calls for temporarily placing a drug under federal drug control in the event the Convention requires it, was invoked in 1984 with rohypnol. Long before abuse of the drug was sufficiently widespread in the United States to meet the Act's drug control criteria, rohypnol was added to the Schedules of the Convention on Psychotropic Substances, and the U.S. government had to place rohypnol in Schedule IV of the Controlled Substances Act in order to meet its minimum treaty obligations^[15].

As of March 2005, 111 substances were controlled under the Convention.

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