Improving access to controlled essential medicines – report from the commission on narcotic drugs meeting

By David Oliver and Katherine Pettus

The United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna is holding a series of intersessional meetings this autumn to discuss how governments are implementing the many policy tasks they set themselves in the Outcome Document (OD) of the 2016 United Nations General Special Session (UNGASS) on the World Drug Problem.

Each intersessional focuses on one of the OD’s seven chapters. The Vienna Non-governmental Organisations Committee on Drugs invited David to serve as an expert panellist for Chapter 2, “Ensuring the availability and access to controlled substances exclusively for medical and scientific purposes, while preventing diversion.” UN member states and organisations (such as the World Health Organization, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), as well as other civil society organisations) reported on progress and challenges in implementation of the recommendations contained in that chapter.

David spoke in his capacity as an EAPC Board Member and representative on the European Union Civil Society Forum on Drugs. Katherine contributed in her capacity as IAHPC Advocacy Officer while other civil society interventions, in the form of video presentations, came from Dr Sunita Panta, from the Nepal Military Hospital in Kathmandu, Dr Sami Alsirafy from the Palliative Medicine Unit at Cairo University, Egypt, and Busi Nkosi from the International Children’s Palliative Care Network.

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