Drug abuse: Tendencies and ways to overcome it

The ecological dimension of measures against drug abuse is linked to

the legal regulation that puts restrictions on the preservation and

dissemination of drug-bearing plants. This amounts to a ban on their

cultivation and destruction of the fields without any damage to the

environment. The cultivation of such plants is expected to be limited to

specially allotted areas where drug-bearing plants can be sown for medical

purposes only.

International Dimention:

The international dimention of measures against drug abuse is

manifested in various legislative, and law enforcement measures at the

international level.

In sum, this system of measures covers a totality of numerous, diverse,

complementary and carefully outlined programs that have social, legal,

criminological, medical, economic, ecological, organizational and

international dimensions.

Par. 2. Classification of Measures to Overcome Drug Abuse

The essence of the system of measures to overcome drug abuse can be

understood by their classification in view of the diversity of these

measures. By establishing their different categories and distributing them

into various groups, this classification would make it possible to give

each measure its own niche, to define its boundaries and its relationship

to other measures. This classification makes it possible to determine the

degree of each measure's significance and its priority in terms of its

practical implementation.

It is important to group them by contents, form, level, subject of

application, and type. As for legal measures, they should be grouped in

accordance with different branches of law.

The Content of Measures to Overcome Drug Abuse:

The measures to overcome drug abuse carried out by the UN Commission on

Drugs of the UN Economic and Social Council, by the UN International

Committee on Drug Control and by other international agencies can be

grouped into the following categories: analytical, organizational, training

and educational, research, technical, medical, economic, financial,

international law, preventive, monitoring, legislative, and criminal.

Analytical component is needed in order to be able to make use of a

complex system of collecting and assessing data about drug abuse, to

evaluate the extent of the illegal use of drugs in different countries

worldwide, and to make data available on the seizure of large quantities of

narcotics to interested parties.

Organizational component of measures is aimed at setting up

international agencies to control drugs and to combat drug trade; assisting

countries in developing national policies on such control; supporting

projects, promoting national law enforcement agencies; defining direction

of programs and ensuring the organizational backing of such programs;

estimating the amount of illegal cultivation of drug-bearing plants in

areas difficult and dangerous to access. Governmental measures should

include adoption and fulfillment of national programs to overcome drug

abuse by forming special law-enforcement, medical and other institutions,

as well as special services and squads to combat drug trade; taking stock

of lands used to cultivate drug-bearing plants; arranging control over the

production, storage, consumption, an shipments of drugs, especially across

national borders, as well as over the actions for pharmaceutical and

medical centers.

The training and educational component includes educating specialists

in law-enforcement agencies, mass media, narcological centers, and social

services.

The research component aims to define and analyze data on drug abuse,

to work out recommendations for overcoming it, to set up and run special

research labs, and to find new ways of ending drug addiction.

The technical component includes identifying drugs, designing equipment

for special labs, developing remote control devices to spot fields of drug-

bearing crops.

The medical component of measures is: to promote a system of

rehabilitative treatment for drug users; to choose appropriate curative

programs; and work on methods to reduce the spread of infectious diseases

among drug users.

The economic component consists chiefly in funding various programs and

projects, combating drug abuse, supporting programs reducing demand for

drugs and their supply, encouraging and supporting populations which had

switched to cultivating farm crops on territories where drug-bearing plants

had been grown previously.

The financial component involves measures against money laundering.

Financial operations by drug moguls aimed at making their earnings legal

are the most vulnerable part for the criminals. In view of this, the

Committee for Banking Rules and Banking Supervision issued a statement on

December 12th, 1988 that calls for preventing criminal uses of the banking

system for laundering cash obtained from drug trafficking. It requires that

the international banking community use extreme discretion while

identifying clients. The statement also calls for more cooperation with

judicial systems and police institutions in halting the legalization of

cash from drug trafficking. Many countries have accepted that the

principles contained in this statement are applicable to the operation of

their own financial systems. In keeping with a decision of the G Seven

countries and of the European Commission Chairman at the 15th economic

summit in Paris in July 1989, a special operational group on financial

issues was started. It produced 40 recommendations made public in February

1990. It also analyzed world financial flows, banking and financial systems

and methods for laundering cash. The group found some weak spots and

undertook a number of other steps. All the countries, who are members of

this group and (in keeping with its recommendations) some other countries

declared that they viewed participation in laundering cash as a criminal

act and started special services to investigate leads on shady deals

reported by subunits of the financial system. At the recommendation of the

special operational group on finances, the UN International Committee on

Drug Control called on all governments to pass and effectively use

appropriate legislative acts to stop money laundering, to confiscate the

property of drug dealers, and to consider a possibility of lifting the

burden of proving the legitimacy of supposed incomes or of other property

subject to confiscation under par. 7 of Article 5 of the 1988 Convention

even if this may require legal or constitutional amendments.

Among the international law components of measures are those calling

for reciprocal legal support of countries working to combat drug

trafficking. It is essential to make extradition easier, to strengthen

international cooperation against illegal drug trafficking, as well as to

promote the international system of control over medicinal drugs and

psychotropes.

The preventive measures are comprised of destroying illegal plantations

of drug-bearing crops; preventing a transfer of drugs and of their

components from the legal sphere to the illegal one; curbing illegal drug

trafficking; reducing the demand for drugs; preventing the use of

narcotics, particularly, in places of employment, eliminating the addicts'

pads, illegal labs where narcotics are made and stores which sell them;

promoting social rehabilitation of drug addicts and encouraging education

campaigns against drugs.

The control component of measures envisages supervision over the

following areas: the growing of drug-bearing plants, to rule out a

"leakage" of the legitimately grown plants: illegal sowing and raising;

production of narcotics, their acquisition, storage, stocking and

dispensing; commercial trade turnover in special equipment used for

producing drugs, as well as in raw materials; semi-finished products,

chemicals and narcotic analogies; international parcel post deliveries as a

vehicle for sending narcotics; ships sailing on the high seas and planes

flying in international space; transit through customs' ports; approaches

to land, sea and air borders; and deliveries of drugs for treatments at

hospitals.

The most important law-making measure is that of bringing national

legislation in line with international conventions on narco-business.

The common criminal measures are those applied in every country, as

criminal responsibility for illegal drug trafficking, sowing and raising

drug-bearing plants as well as for other socially dangerous actions related

to drugs. These measures cover both punishments for the above-listed crimes

and also confiscation of tools and of income earned from the illegal drug

trafficking.

Other measures include improving judiciary and legal systems such as

law-enforcement bodies, courts of law, penitentiary and post penitentiary

programs, customs and education.

Forms of Measures to Overcome Drug Abuse:

The classification of measures to overcome drug abuse can be subdivided

into two groups: those having legal form and those that do not, i.e. those

which are regulated and unregulated by the law accordingly.

Measures to Overcome Drug Abuse Regulated by the Law:

The legal measures against drug abuse include compulsory educational;

compulsory medical; preventive- repressive; repressive; those ensuring

active participation of citizens in combating crimes, in preventing and

curbing them; as well as procedural and organizational managerial. The

compulsory medical, preventive repressive and repressive measures are those

aimed at suppressing drug abuse and the compulsory educational-at

preventing it.

Organizational managerial measures on the basis of administrative legal

norms, determine in general terms, the status of curative educational and

curative labor centers providing treatments to drug addicts, and the

competence of law-enforcement agencies and of the court regarding the

compulsory placing of drug addicts for treatment. In addition, there are

also measures, containing the following provisions: to build up, on the

national scale, a network of bodies and institutions whose functions will

amount to combating drug-related crimes; to record the number of addicts

and provide treatments to them; to promote departmental cooperation in the

work of combating narcotics; many organizational managerial measures are

specified by international law, registered in conventions, agreements,

treaties and other documents.

Measures to Overcome Drug Abuse Unregulated by the Law:

The second group of measures to overcome drug abuse are those which are

not regulated by the law. They are informational, analytical,

organizational, educational, scientific, technological, medical and

preventive, as well as other measures that bear no relation to compulsion.

It is the group of legal measures, which can be subdivided into law

branches. Such norms, as suggested above, can be found in the civil,

family, labor, administrative, and criminal codes.

The Level of Measures to Combat Drug Abuse:

Measures to combat drug abuse can be divided into the following four

levels: international, social, special and individual.

Measures at the international level are applied by various countries

throughout the world. They are particularly binding in the countries, which

have joined international treaties by ratifying them. This category of

measures may include any of the previously listed such as informational,

analytical, research, technical, medical, economical, financial,

preventive, control, and law-making.

Social measures are those used on a national scale and meant to

influence society as a whole. They include preventive, law-making, criminal

and other legal measures, as well as the ones embracing the entire society

such as informational, analytical, organizational, managerial, medical,

economical, and others.

Special measures aim to overcome drug abuse and influence, on the one

hand, certain kinds of harmful activities linked to drugs, and on the

other, restrain persons inclined to carry out such activities or drug

addicts. Measures aimed against certain kinds of activities include, for

example, actions to destroy illegally sown crops or wild drug-bearing

plants, may include measures in regard to specific individuals, attempts to

cure drug addicts; to reveal and record the names of people inclined to

commit drug-related crimes, or persons already convicted for such crimes;

to prevent such people from committing more crimes; and to help persons

from high risk groups avoid situations which may induce drug use.

Measures in regard to individuals cover steps taken in relation to

those persons who use drugs or those who have committed or tend to commit

crimes or other law-breaking acts involving drugs. They include steps

providing drug addicts with an opportunity to undergo treatment or making

them, if necessary, to undergo treatment, instituting criminal proceedings

or using administrative measures against persons who have committed crimes,

as well as preventing or warding off potentially socially dangerous actions

involving drugs, etc. Medical, preventive, administrative, legal, criminal,

criminal procedural and criminal executive measures can also be seen as

measures in regard to individuals.

The Subjects of Measures to Overcome Drug Abuse:

The measures to overcome drug abuse can be grouped by institutions

implementing them. There are international agencies and organizations,

medical institutions, law-making bodies, law-enforcement agencies,

executive government branches, specially created agencies, groups and other

organizations.

The Commission on Narcotics of the UN Economic and Social Council and

the UN International Committee on Drug Control are permanently functioning

international agencies. Various conferences and symposia on actions against

drug abuse discussed and worked out conventions, programs, decisions,

projects, and recommendations. These can be referred to as temporarily

operating organizations. Conferences of member-states, i.e. of their

official representatives, have the right to approve conventions and other

normative documents subsequently ranked as international law acts. After

their ratification, legal norms contained in them become part of national

legislation. International bodies exercise all the above-listed measures to

combat drug abuse, except for criminal measures and a few others.

Medical institutions have the authority to carry out curative and

curative preventive measures.

By their nature, the measures to overcome drug addiction can be divided

into suppressive and preventive.

This classification makes it possible to determine the importance of

each particular group. It can also serve as the basis for building a system

of measures to be used for the preparation and subsequent development of

the national program of action to combat drug addiction.

Measures to Overcome Drug Abuse:

By evaluating the measures to overcome drug abuse from the study of the

experience, it is possible to single out the following groups of measures:

1) control preventive; 2) research, training and educational; 3) medical;

4) legal; 5) economic and financial, and 6) organizational.

The control and preventive; research, training and educational;

economic and financial measures are grouped together because they are

closely intertwined. Legal measures in this national program should include

law enforcement and law-making measures and organizational measures-

informational, analytical, and technical measures.

Without referring to the contents once again it would be important,

from the standpoint of their expression and place in this program, to draw

attention to some points concerning certain groups of the proposed

measures.

A method should be defined in this anti-drug program of applying

control measures. It would need to be a legislative regulation of drug

movements from the sowing of drug-bearing plants and their cultivation, to

the consumption of drugs. Presently, conflicting rules regulating the

production, acquisition, storage, stock taking, dispensing, transportation

and the sending of narcotics by parcel post are in force. These rules were

enacted by executive branch agencies rather than by lawmakers. For example,

the rules concerning the production, storage, stock-taking, and dispensing

of drugs were established by the orders issued by the Ministry of Health,

and the Ministry of the Medical and Micro- biological Industry of the

former USSR. Transportation rules can be found in orders issued by the

Ministry of the Medical Industry and coordinated with the Ministry of

Internal Affairs of the former USSR. Rules for sending and shipping drugs

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

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