CHAPTER 2: International Drugs Control

The international control of drugs of misuse is governed by three United Nations (UN) treaties: The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, the Convention on Psychotropic Substances, 1971, and the Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, 1988. Member states of the UN are required to introduce appropriate domestic controls on listed substances. In the 1961 Convention, apart from many obscure opiates, there is a strong emphasis on plant-based drugs, with rules for cultivation, manufacture and trade. More than 100 psychotropic substances are listed in the 1971 Convention, but again only a small fraction are regularly abused. Some countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, have added many more substances to their national lists, some of which arise from the use of generic or analogue control in these jurisdictions. The term ‘psychotropic’ is not defined in the Convention and has largely been replaced in general use by ‘psychoactive’. The purpose of the 1988 Convention was to provide additional legal mechanisms for enforcing the 1961 and 1971 Conventions. An important feature of the 1988 Convention was the introduction of trade controls on precursor chemicals. Apart from precursor legislation, the European Union (EU) has specific competence in monitoring and, where necessary, mandating EU-wide legal controls on new psychoactive substances (NPS).