Drug abuse: Tendencies and ways to overcome it

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.

Purposeful Actions Against Drug Abuse:

Intensifying actions against drug abuse by revealing and attacking vulnerable spots of narco-business through the help of new, more perfect law as the world community increasing realized the danger of narcotics, it displayed a growing ability to apply new international legal norms. As a result the world community has been approving appropriate legal norms to check the spread of narcotics. For example, on the basis of the 1912 Hague
Convention the signatories pledged to undertake measures to gradually stop the production, domestic trade, and consumption of smoke opium, as well as to ban its import and export. The 1988 Convention registered the provision on controlled drug deliveries at the international level on the basis of mutual accords. In accordance with the statement by the Committee for
Banking Rules and Banking Supervision of 12th December 1988 and the decision of July 1989 by the heads of states and governments of the seven leading industrial nations and by the European Commission Chairman, measures were taken to prevent criminal use of the banking system for laundering money obtained from drug trade.

The Universalization of Legal Norms:

The trend to ensure universalization, unification and standardization of the international legal norms on narcotics first manifested it self in the 1912 Hague Convention, the Convention of 19th February 1925 and the
Uniform Convention. These contained uniform lists of controlled narcotics.
The Convention of 13th July 1931 introduced the notions "production",
"refining", "processing", "reserve storage stocks", "government storage stocks", "export-import", "cultivation", "illegal trafficking",
"territory", "manufacture", "preparation", "storage stocks", and "special storage stocks". The 1961 Uniform Convention and the 1988 Convention provided unified lists of socially dangerous activities, qualified as criminal offenses.

Raising the Effectiveness of the International Legal Norms:

More and more specific and not just declarative norms ensuring effective and lasting actions against narcotics have been introduced into law-enforcement practice at each new stage in the international legal regulation of narcotics. The adoption of these international legal norms is paving the way for a real opportunity to oppose drug abuse.

Whereas the 1909 Shanghai Opium Commission failed to generate any constructive measures against narcotics, the 1912 Hague Convention managed to define the kinds of narcotics to be placed under international control.
The Agreement of 11th February 1925 provided for the establishment of monopoly institutions to deal with opium and for the transfer of the smoke opium production to a government monopoly. The Convention of 19th February
1925 extended the list of controlled narcotics and introduced new restrictions. Appropriate provisions of the 1931 Bangkok Agreement, the
Convention of 13th July 1931, of 26th June 1936, the Protocol of 19th
January 1948, the 1961 Uniform Convention (with amendments), the 1988 UN
Convention and documents of the European Community of 1988 and 1989 as discussed above, have also been raising the effectiveness of the drive against narcotics.

Bringing into Line the International and National Legal Norms:

Increasingly international and national legal norms against narcotics are brought into line as nations sign and ratify international acts. This leads to the mutual enrichment of the international and national legal norms aimed at blocking narcotics. On the one hand, the world community elevates national legal norms to international level by instituting international legal norms. On the other hand, nations ratify international legal acts thus adopting them as domestic legislation. International and domestic legal norms coincide almost completely sometimes, in such areas the list of narcotics and drug-related actions considered a criminal offense, as well as the procedure of filing criminal charges against persons committing drug-related crimes, and their extradition.

The Rise in the Number of Countries Taking Part in International

Conferences:

There has been an increase in the number of nations taking part in international conferences on narcotics and in the number of nations signing international legal acts. This is evident in the fact that 13 nations took part in the Shanghai Opium Commission in 1909, whereas 73 nations attended the New York conference, which adopted the Uniform Convention in 1961.
Since then, many nations have ratified the Uniform Convention and the 1988
UN Convention and more are going to sign them.

Setting up Specialized Agencies:

The world community has created and keeps expanding the functions of the specialized agencies dealing with narcotics, such as Permanent Central
Committee on Drugs of 1925, the Special Commission of 1928, the Control
Commission of 1931, the Commission on Drugs of the UN Economic and Social
Council of 1961 and the UN International Committee on Drug Control, and the special operations group on financial matters of 1989 dealing with money laundering resulting from drug trafficking. These agencies handle more and more functions in response to the ever more sophisticated dissemination of drugs, and money laundering resulting from drug trafficking.

The reaction of the world community to narcotics examined above shows a deeper understanding of this dangerous phenomenon, along with the increasing sophistication of measures against it. One can predict that this tendency will remain steadfast and keep progressing.

Chapter IV. Measures to Suppress and Prevent Drug Abuse
Measures to Prevent Drug Abuse Regulated by Law:

International legal acts are realized on a national scale. National measures in turn are of the three basic types: suppression, prevention, and rehabilitation.

Legal measures of suppression are coercive measures in regard to crimes that have already been committed. They are a combination of criminal-legal, criminal-executive and legal-administrative measures.

The criminal-legal measures must be fully compatible with the criminal law and registered in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. They are expected to safeguard the public from the drug-related crimes by inflicting punishment on persons who have committed these crimes and also, in combination with it, in cases stipulated by the law, apply coercive measures of medical nature or, if need be, a system of guardianship. These measures can be divided into two groups: those referring to crime and those referring to punishment. Measures of the second group, though they are envisaged by the norms of the criminal law, seem to be closer to legal- executive measures, and can therefore be grouped, with a certain degree of relativity, into the legal-executive category.

The legal-executive measures include punishment, coercive measures of medical nature, as well as the process of executing punishment and coercive measures of medical nature along with putting under guardianship, if required.

Legal-administrative measures are covered by the norms of the administrative law, establishing responsibility for the infringements of the law and regulating compulsory treatment of drug addicts.

Measures to prevent narcotics are very diverse. Their aim is to exert influence on various elements such as on persons using drugs, sowing and raising drug-bearing crops, manufacturing, acquiring, storing and selling narcotic substances and committing other drug-related crimes; on persons committing crimes with the aim of getting the means to purchase drugs or those undertaking criminal actions in the state of narcotic intoxication; and on circumstances that are seen as causes and conditions of drug addiction, etc. The preventive influence on all these persons may take three forms: persuasion, compulsion and stimulation.

The last two forms can only be applied if they are regulated by law.

Measures to Prevent Drug Abuse Unregulated by Law:

In terms of goals these measures can be divided into general social and special ones. General social measures have to do with society's social and economic development, the rise in cultural, educational and moral standards of all citizens. The economic development measures aim to increase the production of material benefits, as well as of intellectual output making the nation richer and the living standards higher. Social measures are apparent in rational distribution of funds in increase the government provides for social needs. Cultural and educational measures aim to promote the development of art, literature, science and education; they draw an ever-greater number of people into this process and ensure that they gain knowledge, know-how, and skills. Measures aiming to raise moral standards are expressed in inculcating an awareness of the need to abide by the social, particularly, legal, religious and other norms and rules of conduct in society. All these measures are designed to prevent crimes and violations, including drug-related crimes, and drug abuse particularly.

Special are those measures that prevent drug abuse as such, and crimes related to it, including those recommended by the international organizations and fora.

These are, for example, measures to promote a healthy way of life without consumption of narcotics and censuring the harm caused by narcotics and drug-related crimes. These measures are implemented by means of: 1) education - lectures, presentations at schools and other training centers, statements on the radio, television or press; 2) training law enforcement officers and medical personnel in the techniques of combating narcotics and drug-related crimes by creating special educational programs and setting up special training centers; 3) treatment and rehabilitation of addicts; 4) collection, analysis, summary, and transmission of information about narcotics, particularly, about new areas of drug-bearing plants, and methods of their production, illegal channels for their exportation, as well as the methods for moving them, using different kinds of transport; 5) preventing the sowing and the growing of drug-bearing plants by replacing them with other crops and stimulating the farmers and providing them an all- round assistance; 6) blocking the channels through which narcotics are moved along; curbing the smuggling of drugs through the joint efforts of customs and law-enforcement officers of neighboring countries specializing in actions against narcotics; 7) supervising the fulfillment of anti-drug laws regulating the sowing and growing of drug-bearing plants, drug circulation, etc; 8) reducing the demand for drugs by preventing their transfer from the legal to the illegal domain, including the use of a
"daily dosage method" which makes it possible to determine the correlation between the quantity of drugs necessary for medical and research needs and the volume of sale; 9) introduction of remote control devices to estimate the scale of illegal cultivation of drug-bearing plants in remote places and creating obstacles for laundering money and other property acquired as a result of drug trafficking.

In terms of the time, frame measures against narcotics and drug-related offenses can be divided into early warning, direct impact and postpenitentiary prophylactic.

The early warning measures are expected to exert influence on persons, who are not well-versed in drugs and their danger, and who are informed on the subject but do not take drugs. The preventive influence on poorly informed persons is made by disseminating knowledge. In this respect the experience of the United States is worthy of attention and could be borrowed by the Russian Federation. For as long as a quarter of a century, preschool children, especially, the ones who attend day care centers have been educated that any medicines, including drug-bearing ones are harmful for their health, if they are taken without a doctor's prescription and the knowledge of the exact dose. To achieve a more vivid effect an album for coloring pictures featuring narcotics and health is used.

In Australia, there are centers for preventing drug abuse where school students between 5 and 12 years old have 7 lessons a year forming a certain attitude to narcotics, as well as an awareness of the danger of drug addiction.

The influence on persons who are aware of the harm of narcotics and do not take drugs can be achieved by "tearing them away," so to speak, from their surroundings where drugs may be used or are used already. This can be accomplished by conversation with individuals, their families, and colleagues living in similar environment.

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