Drug abuse: Tendencies and ways to overcome it

by rail or any other kind of transport were determined by normative acts of

various agencies. On the other hand, even if this is the prerogative of law-

makers, the rules are scattered within various and quite numerous

normative acts making it difficult to control violations of these rules by

law-enforcement agencies. So, if a full and effective control over the

circulation of narcotics is to be ensured, uniform rules for handling drugs

should be worked out on the basis of the existing rules and should be made

into law. These rules should envisage the procedures for the sowing,

raising, producing, storing, stock-taking, dispensing and selling of drugs

and for the acquiring, sending by parcel post, and carrying of drugs and

their analogies, as well as raw materials, semi-finished products,

chemicals and special equipment used in making drugs across national

borders.

To implement research, training and educational measures in a national

program it is essential to set up a single research and study center

consisting of facilities capable to perform specific tasks of dealing with

drug addiction. These tasks should be defined in the national program

without overstepping their limits, so as not to squander means and

resources on meeting other goals. For example, the tasks of the research

facility should be to identify drugs, establish new types of drugs and

study the most pressing problems of efforts aimed at stopping drug

addiction. There is a need to establish how money obtained from the

narcotics trade is laundered and determine methods for halting this

process; a need to develop methods for examining controlled deliveries,

documenting them and obtaining evidence which could determine guilt of the

involved parties. The research center could work out methods for carrying

out searches and other actions to uncover illegal drug operations and

actions of those guilty, including sponsors, leaders and members of

organized crime groups. The research center could summarize international

experience in combating drug addiction, including school and out-of-school

psycho preventive education for minors, preventive measures among

population groups considered to be at a risk, and educational and

preventive activity by means of mass media.

Special attention should be paid to law-making measures devoted to

combating drug addiction. It is expedient to include in the national

program provisions regulating legal drug turnover, regulations for the

treatment, and rehabilitation of drug addicts. It is necessary to develop

and pass the law on the responsibility for laundering drug money ensure and

to treatment of drug patients grown drug-bearing plants for personal use at

therapy centers or narcological hospitals, who have made, bought or kept

drugs or have sown without selling them, rather than making them face

criminal responsibility.

Economic and financial measures in the national program should provide

for funding to actually put this program into effect. It should also ensure

the functioning of the law-enforcement agencies engaged in the anti-drug

programs, of narcological institutions and drug control services, as well

as support for persons who use fields where drug-bearing crops had been

cultivated earlier but later destroyed. Also the program should develop

provisions about the application of financial measures against the

laundering of drug money.

When it comes to organizational measures, it would be expedient to

single out purely organizational and also informational, analytical, and

material- technical ones.

It seems that priorities of the program should be to strengthen

subunits of the law enforcement agencies, and of narcological centers,

specializing in programs against drug abuse; to set up drug control

agencies, encourage anti-drug programs by the greatest number of agencies,

organizations, and mass media. The priority is promoting cooperation

between all agencies and organizations engaged in combating drug abuse; in

establishing a research center for studying problems of combating drug

addiction, in training and up-grading the qualifications of specialists,

expected to work in their field; and in setting up a data bank on drug

addiction.

All of the above listed informational, analytical and technical

measures should be included in the national program to combat drug

addiction in the Russian Federation. A special fund needs to be started to

support such projects as building medical institutions, a study center, and

the law enforcement agencies furnished with the most modern equipment.

This system of measures to combat drug abuse examined here with the

ranking of these measures, will make it possible to set specific deadlines

for putting stipulated provisions into practice and will define the

responsibility for their implementation, if this system becomes a part of

the national program. The time frame for the implementation of this

extensive program should be no less than 3 years with annual reports from

all those involved. This will help ensure a more effective realization of

all its provisions.

This system and the classification of measures against drug abuse

indicate how difficult and complicated the job of combating drugs is. It

calls for much effort, constant improvement and a considerable resources.

Chapter III. Drug Abuse in the International Law

Par. 1. International Fora and Legal Acts on Drugs

Legal measures figure prominently in the system of actions aiming to

combat drugs. It is precisely the legal acts that determine the object, the

subject of narco-crime and influence the shaping of measures of preventive-

educational and curative interference, as well as the range of drug-related

actions, considered dangerous to the public.

Measures against drug abuse rest, first and foremost, on a number of

international law acts ratified by the Supreme Soviet of the former USSR.

These acts have different names: treaty, pact, convention, agreement,

protocol, declaration and so on. From the juridical point of view, the

difference in names is of no principal importance. No clear-cut criterion

for the use of these names has been worked out in international practice.

In each particular case, this question is resolved by the parties

(countries) to negotiations, who agree on the definition of relations

between them in this or another special field.

Actions against drug abuse are regulated by international law because

they involve international relations, as they touch upon the interests of

not one but, sometimes, of many countries. As for narco-crimes, they

encroach upon the international cooperation, violate human rights, and

state interests.

All crimes bearing international nature and coming under the norms of

international criminal law, can be divided into two groups by the degree of

their danger to the public, and the forms of manifestation: crimes of

international character.

International crimes are those posing the biggest threat to the

development of peaceful relations and cooperation between nations

regardless of their social, political and government systems. They include

heinous crimes against peace and security of the mankind, such as

aggression, genocide, biocide, ecocide or apartheid.

Crimes of International Character:

Crimes of international character are defined as those covered by the

international law but not belonging to the category of crimes against peace

and security of mankind, rather those infringing upon normal relations

between countries and damaging their peaceful cooperation in various

fields, as well as infringing upon relations between organizations and

citizens. These crimes are much less dangerous and are hard to compare to

crimes against the peace and security of mankind. They are punishable "in

accordance with the norms covered by the international agreements

(conventions), ratified in the proper order, or by the national criminal

codes which conform to these agreements."

Various areas of inter-state relations are the objects of crimes of

international character. This factor makes it possible to divide these

crimes into four rather relative sub-divisions:

1) Crimes that infringe upon the peaceful cooperation and normal

conduct of international relations (terrorism, hijacking and other crimes);

2) Crimes that damage in a variety of norms international economic,

social and cultural development, such as smuggling, illegal emigration,

counterfeiting and dissemination of narcotics through illegal trade;

3) Crimes that against property, moral values, and rights of

individuals, such as trafficking, piracy, pornography and other crimes

covered by international conventions and agreements;

4) Other crimes of international character, such as crimes committed on

board of aircraft, damage to underwater cables, collision of ships and the

failure to provide help at sea etc.

This classification rules out an identical approach to crimes that are

crimes against humanity, and crimes that are of international character.

This classification allows to examine them in conformity with the set of

laws they infringe upon and in conformity with the extent of harm they do

to international relations. Moreover, this classification largely helps

prevent any broader interpretation of the notion of international crimes.

The categories - listed above of these are not something permanent, as

these crimes are of the changeable and dynamic nature. The extent of danger

they pose can move them from one category to another. At present any crimes

encroaching upon the vital interests of all nations and countries can be

considered as international crime or crime of international character.

Virtually all countries recognize the need to combat international

crimes and crimes of international character, including the illegal

dissemination of and trade with narcotics. The binding nature of this

effort stems from the universally recognized principles of international

law, including the international duty of all countries to maintain peace

and promote security of all nations, as well as to hold persons guilty of

committing crimes against the peace and security of mankind and other

crimes of international character accountable for their actions.

All international legal acts against drug abuse can be divided into

general and specific. General acts regulate various types of international

relations, particularly, those formed in connection with actions against

international crimes and crimes of international character, including the

dissemination of and trade with drugs. Specific acts of international law

bear direct relation to actions against drug abuse and its most dangerous

aspect- narco-crime.

General Acts of International Law:

General acts of international law lay the legal foundation for cooperation

among nations, in actions against international crimes and crimes of

international character, the dissemination of narcotics among others. One

of these acts is the UN Charter. Its Preamble urges all UN members to join

in a common effort to maintain international peace and security. The UN

Charter stresses the need to use international machinery for promoting the

nations' economic and social progress and sets the goal "to practice

international cooperation in resolving international problems of economic,

social, cultural and humanitarian nature and in encouraging and promoting

respect for human rights and basic freedoms for all regardless of race,

sex, language and religion"

The UN Charter (part 2 art. 2) also calls on nations to strictly and

unswervingly observe international commitments that they have taken upon

themselves voluntarily and among them, as the Preamble points out, to the

commitments stemming from treaties, agreements and other sources of

international law.

One of the major historically evolved principles of international law

states that international agreements must be observed. Stemming from this

principle is a member nation's duty to cooperate in combating crime,

international crimes and crimes of international character, including the

dissemination of and trade with narcotics.

These crimes have certain particularities. This has a bearing on the

question of accountability if such crimes are committed. According to I.I.

Karpets, there is a need to single out crimes covered by conventions or

other signed and ratified international agreements, especially, if national

legislation have been brought in accord with them. The existence of both is

a good reason for making those guilty of committing these crimes to be held

accountable. A failure to do so must be qualified as a violation of both

international law and national legislation.

In case there are no coordinated norms of accountability, the involved

countries should proceed from the general principles that had developed

among nations and resolve questions of cooperation against crime on that

basis. Specifically, they may determine the forms of this cooperation, its

confines, the need to institute criminal proceedings in view of the

committed crimes of international character, etc.

Special Acts of International Law:

Special norms of international law dealing with measures to combat drug

abuse have been taking shape gradually. The history of their development is

uneven- from establishing international control over the lawful

distribution and use of drugs to introducing control over illegal drug

trafficking.

It is not accidental that crimes bearing on drug abuse are qualified as

crimes of international character. This can be attributed to a number of

circumstances.

As an age-old phenomenon, drug addiction has spread over large

territories. As it kept crossing national borders, whole areas appeared

that specialized in growing and processing drug-bearing plants,

manufacturing and distributing narcotics. Recently, areas where drug money

can be laundered at a profit have emerged. In short, drug addiction has

become widespread practically on all the continents. Drug abuse has

acquired a transnational nature. At the turn of last century it had already

been clear that drug addiction endangered not only the lives of individuals

and social groups but also the economic advancement of many countries, as

it is bound to inflict considerable damage on agriculture and trade and

undermine whole industries. (chemical, pharmaceutical or pharmacological).

Measures that various governments tried to employ within their

countries in the hope to "curb" drug addiction, so to speak, and ban, say,

in Turkey or China, the non-medicinal use of drugs, failed to bring any

positive results.

On top of that, programs against drug addiction required additional

financial resources for treatment and social rehabilitation of addicts,

medical personnel, curative medicines, and preventive measures by law

enforcement agencies. Many countries lacked such financial resources. So,

actions against drug abuse began crossing national boundaries. The

awareness of a possible proliferation of drugs raised concern of the world

public opinion and governments of many countries began pressing for the

intensification of the rule of law on the international scene.

Consequently, an objective need arose to work out and put into practice

joint inter-governmental agreements, adopt effective legal norms that would

regulate international cooperation, enable countries to employ coordinated

measures against drugs as a whole and its specific manifestations and to

establish, as a result, both a domestic and international control over the

use of narcotics and their consumption.

The first experiment of international control over narcotics and of

measures against drug addiction at the international level dates back to

the Shanghai Opium Commission held between February 5th and 26th 1909 in

the city of Shanghai.

Shanghai Opium Commission of 1909:

This commission consisted of the representatives from 13 countries:

Russia, the USA, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Britain, France, China, Italy,

Japan, Netherlands, Persia, Portugal and Siam.

The commission attempted to work out measures that would block the

illegal flow of drugs from the regions of Asia to European countries and

the United States. It also discussed questions related to opium smoking and

to international trade in opium derivatives.

In the long run, however, no constructive measures were produced.

Documents issued by the commission contained no specific bans even on opium

smoking. Members of the commission thought it was sufficient to only speak

about its regulation and gradual restriction.

Nevertheless, the work of the Shanghai opium commission of 1909 played

a significant role. Officially it marked the beginning of actions against

drug addiction at the international level and to the launching of a system

of international control over the spread of drugs. It also mapped out

directions for the future international legislation in resolving problems

reviewed in Shanghai.

A further advancement in combating drugs was made in the Hague at the

International Opium Conference held from December 1st 1911 to January 23d

1912. Representatives of 12 countries took part in it (the same as in

Shanghai excluding Austria-Hungary). The conference prepared and adopted

the first convention on drugs (known as the Hague Convention). As a follow

up to the Shanghai Commission, in terms of ideas, the conference proclaimed

the timeliness of actions against narcotics as a whole and its specific

trends.

The Hague Convention of 1912:

The Hague convention of 1912 was the first to define the specific types of

drugs, which were put under international control. They were raw opium,

smoke opium, medicinal opium, morphine, cocaine and a few others. The

contracting parties took pledges of both domestic and international nature

upon themselves to adopt national laws establishing control over the

production and distribution of raw opium, and at barring its illegal

imports and exports without permits granted by specially authorized

persons; to take steps towards gradually halting the production, domestic

trade and use of smoke opium and introducing a ban on its imports and

exports; to use narcotic substances (medicinal opium, morphine and cocaine)

only for medicinal and "other reasonable purposes"; to ensure a legal

regulation of the production of morphine, cocaine, medicinal opium, heroin

and their derivatives and also of trade in these narcotic substances; to

adopt appropriate laws (if they are not adopted yet) or change existing

laws concerning the responsibility and punishment of persons guilty of acts

involving the illegal possession of drugs.

The provision concerning the legal regulation of the production of

morphine and its derivatives and trade in them (cocaine, medicinal opium

and heroin) was an important step. It was an attempt to use preventive

measures such as foreseeing the establishment of international control over

narcotic substances, which could appear in the future without their prior

concrete mentioning in the Convention's text.

The significant feature about the Convention was that it not only

proclaimed the need for cooperation among countries in establishing control

over the use of narcotics but also outlined what needed to be accomplished.

One of these accomplishments was the duty of countries to exchange, via the

Dutch government, texts of legal acts and statistics on drugs.

The 1912 Hague Convention, however, failed to bring practical results,

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