Drug Policy Briefings

Report of the 2007 Commission on Narcotic Drugs
International Drug Policy Consortium Briefing Nr. 5, March 2007
This briefing paper summarises the proceedings and outcomes of the 2007 CND. It includes discussion of a wide range of issues - from technical debates on the rescheduling of dronabinol, to the plans for the global review of the 1998 UNGASS objectives - and comments on the performance of the UN agencies in this field, and of the workings of the CND itself.

Sending the wrong message
The INCB and the un-scheduling of the coca leaf
TNI Drug Policy Briefing No. 21, March 2007
The 2006 International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) report emitted a clear signal to the governments of Bolivia, Peru and Argentina that growing and using coca leaf is in conflict with international treaties, particularly the 1961 Single Convention. The INCB, rather than making harsh judgements based on a selective choice of outdated treaty articles, should use its mandate more constructively and help draw attention to the inherent contradictions in the current treaty system with regard to how plants, plant-based raw materials and traditional uses are treated.
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The European Union Drug Strategy: Progress and Problems
International Drug Policy Consortium Briefing Nr. 4, March 2007
This briefing paper gives an overview of the development of drug policies within the European Union, and the institutions and structures that exist to implement and evaluate these policies. Taking the EMCDDA Report 2006, and the European Commission 2006 Progress Review as their starting point, the IDPC analyses the strengths and weaknesses of current arrangements, and makes some recommendations for future action.

The politicisation of fumigations
Glyphosate on the Colombian-Ecuadorian border
TNI Drug Policy Briefing No. 20, February 2007
Plan Colombia has brought environmental, health and economic damage – and may even have stimulated the spread of coca plantations. This briefing looks at alternatives for the Andean region and addresses the glyphosate dispute on the Colombia-Ecuador border.
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The Sierra de la Macarena
Drugs and armed conflict in Colombia
By Ricardo Vargas
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 19, September 2006
Re-establishing fumigation is not going to legitimise or win acceptance of the State's activities in the territory of the Park. It is not going to protect the Park from the environmental deterioration generated by the critical interventions of social and military actors in the war. It is also not going to really affect the FARC's "bankroll". What it will do is create well-fertilised territory for the prolonging of the armed conflict.
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International Drug Control: 100 Years of Success?
TNI comments on the UNODC World Drug Report 2006
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 18, June 2006
In its 2006 World Drug Report, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) struggles to construct success stories to convince the world that the global drug control regime has been an effective instrument. An escape-route used in this year's World Drug Report is to fabricate comparisons with higher opium production levels a century ago and with higher prevalence figures for tobacco. The report suffers from the tension between the UNODC policy makers who want a strict control regime for cannabis and the expert who start to doubt the efectiveness of such a strict control regime. If anything, the 2006 World Drug Report shows that a genuine evaluation process is needed more than ever and that the UNODC cannot be relied upon to perform that task in a transparent, objective and balanced way, without the help of independent experts.
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The UNGASS Evaluation Process Evaluated
IDPC Briefing Paper Nr. 1, May 2006
'At the 49th Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), held in Vienna in March 2006, a draft resolution was tabled by the European Union (EU) to guide the process of evaluation of the implementation of political declaration and action plans of the 1998 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) in 2008. This briefing describes the fortunes of the resolution and its proposals to strengthen the upcoming UNGASS evaluation process. It explores how the resolution’s aims for more objective and transparent assessment were ultimately watered down. This was a result not only of opposition from states wary of transparency, objectivity and a possible re-evaluation of some current UN policies, but also the EU’s own approach to operating at the CND. The authors identify several possible openings for future progress in this area and recommend that; Member States should acknowledge the value of an objective and transparent assessment of the current drug control mechanisms and should ask for an evaluation of the UNGASS evaluation process; the EU should review how it operates at the CND and should invest money to support the realization of the core sections of its resolution.

HIV/AIDS and drug use in Burma/Myanmar
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 17, May 2006
The increasing number of injecting drug users (IDUs) and the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic in Burma presents one of the most serious health threats to the population in the country, and also to the region at large. Infection rates among IDUs in Burma are among the highest in the world. The international community needs to make a firm commitment to stem the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Burma and should ensure sufficient and long-term financial support for HIV/AIDS and harm reduction programmes.
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Political Challenges Posed by the Failure of Prohibition
Drugs in Colombia and the Andean-Amazonian Region
By Ricardo Vargas
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 16, May 2006
After a slight dip in coca production during 2003 and 2004, the Andean region has returned to the historical average of 200,000 hectares of coca crops. Added to this is the sharp increase in the expansion of drug trafficking toward other countries in the region, such as Ecuador and Venezuela, as well as new areas of Central America and the Caribbean. The failure of Washington’s drug policy has enabled illegal globalisation to expand its foothold in the hemisphere, with a negative impact. With this in mind, TNI associate researcher Ricardo Vargas, describes the lack of true public debate on drugs, especially in a country as involved in this problem as Colombia. Given the failure of policy and the complexity of the situation, different schools of political thought once again raise the easy option of legalisation, a proposal that actually conceals the lack of alternative critical thinking focused on the development of a national and regional policy.
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Aerial spraying knows no borders
Ecuador brings international case over aerial spraying
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 15, September 2005
At the urging of various civil humanitarian organizations and government agencies such as the Ombudsman's Office, the Ecuadorans have requested a ban on spraying within 10 kilometres of the border. This is a reasonable request. In this briefing the Transnational Institute explains why the Colombian government has been unwilling to give ground on this minimal demand, which the Ecuadorians have been making since 2001, shortly after the aerial spraying began as part of Plan Colombia.
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The Politics of Glyphosate
The CICAD Study on the Impacts of Glyphosate and the Crop Figures
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 14, June 2005
The Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD), an agency affiliated with the OAS, recently joined the large number of existing scientific studies on the possible health and environmental effects of Round Up, the glyphosate formula being sprayed on illicit crops in Colombia. CICAD’s investigation, under the direction of an international scientific team, concluded that the chemicals used in the spraying — glyphosate and Cosmo-Flux — do not affect human health or the environment, and that at most they could cause temporary skin and eye irritation, but serious doubts exist. The National University of Colombia’s Environmental Studies Institute published a critical analysis of the CICAD study, which considered technical aspects of the investigation, finding methodological shortcomings, as well as omissions and inconsistencies throughout the report. Those findings could point to a lack of impartiality in the CICAD study.
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The United Nations and Harm Reduction - Revisited
An Unauthorised Report on the Outcomes of the 48th CND Session
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 13, April 2005
In this briefing the Transnational Institute (TNI) analyses the proceedings and results of the CND meeting in Vienna, 7-11 March 2005, outlines several options for follow-up and recommends next steps to take.
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The United Nations and Harm Reduction
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 12, March 2005
From 7-14 March 2005 the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) will meet in Vienna. The confrontation between zero-tolerance ideologists and harm reduction pragmatists will be fiercer than ever before. The US government – the biggest donor of UNODC – threatened to cut funding to UNODC unless the agency assured that it would abstain from any support for harm reduction, including needle exchange programmes and substitution treatment. Conflicting views within the UN system on harm reduction have become a major concern. Consistency in messages is crucial especially where it concerns joint global programmes such as the efforts to slow down the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
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Broken Promises and Coca Eradication in Peru
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 11, March 2005
The forced crop eradication policy implemented by the Peruvian government over the past 25 years has failed. The official strategy has exacerbated social conflicts; contributed to various types of subversive violence; jeopardized local economies, also affecting the national economy; and destroyed forests as crops have become more scattered. Worst of all, it has not resolved any of the underlying causes of drug trafficking, such as poverty, marginalisation and government neglect.
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Plan Afghanistan
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 10, February 2005
In November 2004 an unknown mystery plane sprayed opium poppy fields in eastern Afghanistan. Although the US denied any involvement, the US State Department is pressing for aggressive aerial eradiction campaigns to counter the booming opium economy. Due to policy controversies the State Department had to back off. At least for the time being.
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Colombia: Drugs & Security on the Problems of Confusing Drug Policy and Security Policy
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 9, January 2005
The consequence of associating the 'war on drugs' with the 'war on terrorism' is that the failure of the former could end with the failure of the latter. The predominant military approach to 'narcoterrorism' fails to recognise the complex factors underlying both the drug problem and the violence; it assumes that the drug problem can be solved by force and that the armed conflict can be resolved by intensifying the conflict - that is, more war on war; and it has facilitated the consolidation of conventional drug-trafficking structures.
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Super Coca?
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 8, September 2004
Apparently a coca plant was found in Colombia's Sierra Nevada that had a high cocaine content and a higher level of purity, and which was also resistant to the effects of aerial spraying. The content of the report is so absurd that it appears to be a bad joke. Or is there something more behind it?
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The Re-emergence of the Biological War on Drugs
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 7, May 2004
Unfortunately, the mycoherbicide scheme was only derailed temporarily. It has arisen again in recent months. While US-funded research on these biological agents dropped out of public view for a time, it was never suspended, and the investigation was completed in 2002.
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Measuring Progress
Global Supply of Illicit Drugs
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 6, April 2003
Progress Report by the Transnational Institute as a contribution to the Mid-term (2003) Review of UNGASS, April 2003
The Executive Director of the UNODC, Mr Antonio Maria Costa, released a progress report, "Encouraging progress towards still distant goals", as a Contribution to the Mid-term (2003) Review of UNGASS. The report examines whether the international community is on track to reduce illicit drug production, trafficking and abuse. TNI reviewed the UN report.
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Coca, Cocaine and the International Conventions
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 5, April 2003
It is no understatement to claim that there are few plants subject to such tensions as the coca leaf, either in legal and political circuits, or in the medical and anthropological academic world. Before, during and after its inclusion in the number 1 list of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961, the controversy on whether the coca leaf is or is not to be considered a narcotic drug, worthy of control by the international institutions and mechanisms, reached apparent irreconcilable positions.
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The Erratic Crusade of the INCB
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 4, February 2003
In the Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2002 that was released on February 26, the president of the Board, Dr. Philip O. Emafo from Nigeria, launches a strong attack against groups that advocate legalisation or decriminalisation of drug offences, as well as groups "that favour a crusade" focusing only on harm reduction. Mr. Emafo's attack reflects how out of touch the president of the INCB is with current developments in inter­national drug control. If anyone is involved in a "crusade' with "missionary zeal', it is Mr. Emafo himself, trying to turn back accepted best practices in countering the adverse effects of problematic drug use. Mr. Emafo gives a completely distorted picture of the political acceptance of the harm reduction concept.
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See TNI Press Release.

Peru: From Virtual Success to Realistic Policies?
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 3, April 2002
The Peruvian government has become the victim of the false image of success of its drug control policies it launched at the end of the 1990's. A 'virtual' success that has directed international donor attention and support to countries considered more troublesome, such as Colombia and Bolivia. The international community needs to recognise the reasons for Peru's so-called success proving unsustainable and to help the country design and draft a more effective anti-drug strategy. Peru could set an example of what can be achieved through the application of a different drug control model. Such a model would steer clear of forced eradication, apply repressive measures only in relation to organised crime, and would have at its centre a rural development strategy negotiated with the communities themselves.
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Conflict Flares in the Bolivian Tropics
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 2, January 2002
Citing the ban on poppy cultivation imposed in Afghanistan by the now-vanquished Taliban regime, a high UNDCP official stated that the ban had been an unprecedented success in its time, in terms of drugs control, but it was also a major disaster in humanitarian terms. The same holds true for Bolivia. An impressive reduction of the coca-cultivated area has been achieved within the framework of "Plan Dignidad", but this "success" has exacted a heavy toll in terms of the impoverishment and criminalisation of the Bolivian coca leaf-growing peasantry, or "cocaleros", as they are known.
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New Possibilities for Change in International Drug Control
TNI Drug Policy Briefing 1, December 2001
The executive director of the Office of Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP), Pino Arlacchi, will resign mid-2002. Mr. Arlacchi's position became untenable when the UN inspector general's office issued two very critical reports investigating allega­tions of mismanagement, nepotism and possible fraud. While press coverage focused on the scandals within ODCCP, little attention was given to the negative legacy of Mr. Arlacchi on the direction of international drug control policy itself.
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