trustworthiness and must have an awareness of the situation in the
countries where narcotics are produced, made and consumed.
The Committee performs important functions, which actually form the
essence of the system of international control over the legal use of
narcotics. They are:
- using the system of estimation of the countries' demand for drugs.
The countries concerned are obliged to submit the following annual
estimations written in special forms to the Committee: the quantity of
drugs used for medical and scientific purpose and for the preparation of
other narcotics, medicines and substances not covered by the given
Convention; the quantity of stored available narcotics as of December 31st
of the reported year; the size and the geographical position of the field
used for cultivating opium poppy and the approximate quantity of opium
expected to be obtained from it, and the number of enterprises producing
synthetic drugs and the quantity of such drugs produced at each enterprise;
- estimating the overall level of drugs produced and imported by any
country or territory throughout one year (quantity of drugs imported which
is above the reported figures cannot be permitted without a sanction from
the Committee);
- introducing a regulated order for endorsing the demand for drugs used
for medical purposes. To ensure a balance between the demand and supply of
opiates used in medicine, the Committee sends information with estimates of
the demand for these preparations to the country producing these drugs. The
country is to agree with these estimates and then decrease (or increase)
their production.
- using the system of statistical reports. The governments submit
statistical reports to the Committee about the production and preparation
of specific drugs, their use and consumption, their exportation and
importation, their detention, their stocks and fields used to cultivate
opium poppy and other data which allows the Committee to determine if
countries are abiding by the Convention's decisions and then take
appropriate measures to ensure their implementation and the accomplishment
of the control functions.
The Committee collects and analyzes information submitted to it by the
United Nations agencies, individual governments and international
organizations, including Interpol. This information features the
production, manufacture, modification, and consumption of drugs, as well as
international trade in them, supply and confiscation of drugs. The
Committee also points to the shortcomings in the arrangement of control
functions and offers recommendations as to how these shortcomings can be
dealt with. If need be, the Committee has the right to invite
representatives of any country to its meetings.
Upon getting the information that the target set by the Convention is
endangered in any country due to its failure to abide by the Convention's
decisions, the Committee has the right to ask for an explanation and also
to recommend adjustment measures. If a particular government fails to
provide a satisfactory explanation or to accept the adjustment measures
proposed by the Committee, the problem can be brought to the attention of
the involved parties, of the Council or the Commission. The involved party
may be recommended to stop the importation or exportation of narcotics to
given countries or territories for a specific period of time until the
Committee recognizes that the situation in that country has become
satisfactory.
The Committee is endowed with the right to impose restrictions, under
certain conditions, on the manufacture and import of drugs.
Since a large volume of information is available at the Committee it is
able to prepare reports, publish them and forward them to the Council to be
sent to the parties concerned. In these reports the Committee can touch
upon any issues connected with drugs and inform its readers about newly
passed decisions. For example, in its report of 1989 (Vienna) the Committee
called on the governments of all countries to strictly observe the
Convention's provisions, to submit statistical accounts about the available
quantities of narcotics and trade in them, among other related data.
To avoid alternative versions and form a single understanding, the
Uniform Convention establishes identical definitions of special terminology
related to drugs.
Drug-related Terminology as Established by the Uniform Convention:
For example, according to the Convention a "narcotic substance" is any
of the substances included in List I and List II regardless of whether it
is synthetic or natural. Lists I, II, III, and IV are enumerations of
narcotics or drug-bearing preparations and are supplements to the
Convention in which possible changes may be made from time to time in
accordance with the procedures established by the Convention.
Definitions are also given for cannabis and its plant and resin,
cocaine shrub, coca leaves, opium, opium poppy and poppy straw.
Significantly, the international understanding of the word
"cultivation" pertaining to drugs covers only the cultivation of opium
poppy, cocaine brush or the cannabis plant. It should be mentioned at this
point that the 1988 UN Convention defines this term differently. But this
will be discussed below.
The term "illegal trafficking" means the cultivation of or any action
relating to the sale of narcotics in violation of the Convention's
decisions. The term "importation" and "exportation" mean the physical
shipment of narcotics crossing the boundaries of one country to another or
from one territory to another within one and the same country. The term
"territory" means any part of a country defined as a separate unit for the
purpose of applications of the system of drug importation certificates and
drug exportation permits to it.
The term "manufacture" implies (with the exception of production) all
the processes that pertain to obtaining narcotic substances, including
refining or turning one narcotic into another.
The term "production" means the separation of opium, coca, cannabis
leaves and cannabis resin from the plants, which they are obtained from.
The term "preparation" means a hard or liquid mixture containing a
narcotic substance.
The term "storage stocks" is used in relation to the amount of
narcotics which are available in a particular country or on its territory
and meant to be used for medical or scientific purposes, for exportation or
for the needs of various pharmacists, authorized traders and specialists or
institutions where medical or scientific research is carried out.
Included in this term is also the notion "special storage stocks" which
is used to describe the amount of narcotics available within a country or a
territory of that country and put at the disposal of its government to be
used for special purposes or in case of an emergency.
The Uniform Convention introduces a number of specific restrictions and
bans and a special procedure for the cultivation of drug-bearing plants.
The most important restrictions are those concerning the cultivation of
opium poppy, cocaine shrub or cannabis plant.
Special provisions are envisaged in the first place in relation to
opium. Government-run institutions (one or several) should be set up to
deal with the cultivation of opium poppy and with opium production. They
should have the right to determine areas and sizes of fields, and issue
licenses and permits for land plots where a certain amount of opium poppy
can be grown and a certain amount of opium-produced. These government-run
institutions should be endowed with the exclusive right to buy opium poppy
crops from farmers and to import, export, conclude wholesale trade deals
and maintain storage opium stocks (with the exception of medicinal opium
and preparations from it.)
The responsibilities of persons are outlined who have permits
(licenses) to grow drug-bearing plants, to turn over crops of opium poppy
only to the institution which they had received their permits from. Any
departures from the established procedures are qualified as violations of
the law. The Convention permits narcotics to be made only at government-run
enterprises or in accordance with licenses issued to persons with necessary
qualifications.
The Convention introduces uniform rules for storing narcotics to ensure
that the substances are maintained in proper condition. It envisages the
responsibility of member-states for taking precautionary measures to
prevent the inappropriate use of narcotics or the possibility for them to
become part of illegal trafficking in cases when, for example, they are
kept in airliners' first aid compartments.
Narcotics can be stored only legally. Their producers are not allowed
to keep them in quantity exceeding the established norms. A compulsory
registration system is established under which the quantity of each
prepared, acquired or used drug should be recorded. Drugs can be stored for
no more than 2 years.
The signatories of the Convention are obliged to take specially
stipulated measures to combat illegal drug trafficking. The Convention
therefore grants the contracting parties the right to control the work of
persons and enterprises engaged, on a legal basis, in the cultivation,
manufacture, storage and use of narcotics and of those engaged in the
drugs' exportation, importation, distribution and trade.
The participating countries, besides, have the following duties: to
take steps at home towards coordinating preventive and repressive measures
against illegal drug trafficking; to help each other in carrying out
campaigns against illegal drug trafficking; to closely cooperate with
competent international bodies in carrying out coordinated actions for the
purpose of combating narcotics and also to ensure an effective
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