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INPUD: "Drug conventions are not biblical texts"

On the 26th June 2013, people in 41 cities around the world gathered for a ‘Day of Action’ as part of the Support. Don’t Punish campaign – a global advocacy campaign to raise awareness of the harms caused by the criminalisation of people who use drugs.

To promote the ‘Day of Action’ for this year, the campaign team have worked with the professional video producers Not by Hook to create a new video – a call to all those who want to get involved in the campaign in 2014.

This video reviews the past year of the Support. Don't Punish campaign -- a global call to raise awareness of the harms caused by the criminalisation of people who use drugs -- and looks forward to what you can do in 2014.

Please click here to read more about this event.

Support. Don't punish-Let's make 2014 even bigger!

Coletta Youngers, a Senior Fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America says the International Narcotics Control Board overstepped its mandage in its criticism of Uruguay's legalization of cannabis. In addition, she emphasizes that the INCB is the only UN agency that works in secrecy.

Coletta Youngers says that the INCB is a tool of the Member States not the contrary and it is the only UN agency that does not have any transparency.

The INCB must be transparent 

Mike Trace, the chair of the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) is sending a message to the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) - a body that monitors the compliance to the UN drug conventions.

INCB should focus on its original mandate

The President of the INCB, Raymond Yans, accused Uruguay of acting as a "pirate" after having approved the autocultivation and legal trade of cannabis. However, Uruguay does not only have international obligations with regards to drugs, but also with regards to human rights.To read the full arcile by Rodrigo Uprimny in El Espectador (in Spanish), please see below.

EL presidente de la Junta Internacional de Fiscalización de Estupefacientes (JIFE), Raymond Yans, acusó a Uruguay de actuar como un “pirata”, por haber aprobado el autocultivo y el suministro legal, pero estrictamente regulado, de marihuana.

La JIFE es la institución encargada de supervisar el cumplimiento de las convenciones sobre drogas y Yans opina que la decisión tomada por Uruguay las viola. Una interpretación aislada de las convenciones parece darle la razón, pues éstas sólo admiten el consumo legal de marihuana para fines médicos o de experimentación científica, mientras que la nueva ley uruguaya prevé también formas legales de acceso a la marihuana para usos recreativos. ¿Significa eso que Uruguay es un pirata que desprecia el derecho internacional por admitir un suministro legal de marihuana para fines recreativos?

No lo creo, pues Uruguay, al igual que las demás naciones, no sólo tiene obligaciones internacionales en drogas sino también en derechos humanos. Y estas obligaciones en derechos humanos prevalecen sobre los mandatos derivados de las convenciones sobre drogas, como lo sostuve en una reciente columna. No puede entonces acusarse a la ligera como pirata a un Estado que decide adoptar una política que entra en tensión con lo prescrito hace más de 50 años por la Convención Única de Estupefacientes de 1961, si ese Estado justifica razonablemente que esa nueva política es necesaria para garantizar los derechos humanos. Ese Estado, en el fondo, busca respetar en mejor forma el derecho internacional pues prefiere cumplir con las obligaciones en derechos humanos, que son prevalentes.

Esto sucede en Uruguay pues la nueva ley tiene una clara perspectiva de derechos humanos y de salud pública; su propósito es evitar que los consumidores adultos de marihuana sigan sometidos a redes ilegales y mafiosas de distribución, pero sin crear un mercado libre de esa sustancia, que podría tener riesgos sanitarios. La ley prevé entonces formas legales pero estrictamente reguladas de autocultivo y distribución de marihuana. Por ejemplo, al igual que con el alcohol, no está autorizado el acceso a la sustancia por menores de edad; quienes produzcan sin autorización o manejen trabados serán sancionados; la publicidad está prohibida, etc.

Dados los desastrosos efectos sociales y humanos que ha tenido el prohibicionismo, los Estados tienen derecho a experimentar nuevas políticas en este campo, como la que está intentando Uruguay, a fin de garantizar en mejor forma la salud pública y el respeto a los derechos humanos.

La política uruguaya es controvertida y requerirá evaluaciones y ajustes, pero que Yans acuse a Uruguay de comportarse como un pirata por intentarla no habla mal de Uruguay sino de la JIFE. Muestra que en el fondo el pirata es Yans, que con su interpretación aislada y fundamentalista de las convenciones de droga, desprecia el derecho internacional, pues ignora las obligaciones prevalentes que tienen los Estados en derechos humanos.

And who is the drugs pirate?

During the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, INCB President Raymond Yans participated in an informal dialogue with NGOs. A summary of the meeting is available below:

We tend to meet with government agencies, but also NGOs. Those we meet are advised by us. NGOs are an important link for us. They are important for drug prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. 

Given the changes taking place in Uruguay, USA and Europe around drug policy, how can the INCB react to these changes in the future?

The INCB’s role is that of a monitor. We look in all the scope of our drug policies. Our role is not just law enforcement. We also deal with prevention and treatment as fundamental pillars of drug policy. We also advise agencies, and when there is a breach in the conventions we have the duty to advise states when they are no longer in line with the countries. Governments are fully responsible to establish their own drug policies. We always insist that effectiveness of prevention programmes depends on how balanced their strategy is. We can assist member states with our technical knowledge. NGOs help us on how to promote the best approach. Kazakhstan, Spain, and others, have different attitudes towards drug policy. We have to appear as independent as we cannot force countries to adopt cultural values or policies that are not in line with their cultural considerations. 

We welcomed the INCB statement on the death penalty. Will the INCB also do the same for harm reduction?

There is a misunderstanding which may be only based on semantics and ideology. In your question you ask whether we would recognise harm reduction as under human rights. As if harm reduction were a human right! Human rights are access to health. The conventions do not contain or refer or define harm reduction. The conventions say that countries need to take measures for prevention, treatment, after care and rehab. Certain aspects of the so-called harm reduction measures are of course useful, but member states are not obliged by the conventions to adopt what some of you call harm reduction. Let’s be frank, harm reduction is ideological. They should not be carried out as an alternative to other interventions such as drug abuse prevention. To come back to pragmatism, let’s see what harm reduction is – we can really call them prevention measures. Some of these measures can be considered as useful – treatment measures can be useful. If you take NSPs, these are in line with the conventions. Those of you who were there when I presented the report, you will have heard me mention access to essential medicines, including methadone and buprenorphine. These are in line with the conventions – but are not required – member states have the power to allow for those or not. We remind governments of the fact that none of the conventions require users to be punished. But governments may choose to do so. Drug users should be considered as human beings, not outcasts and proportionate responses should be given. VNGOC explains that harm reduction was never defined by us to be an alternative to other measures. We need to be clear on definitions.


How does the INCB work when countries’ proposals for estimates for access to essential medicines are clearly insufficient for their needs?

The use of drugs should be limited because of their addictive nature, to medical and scientific purposes. There are annual estimates made by every member state at the beginning of each year. Countries are also free to submit reports on statistics and trade on their needs for import, export, etc. If a country does not submit an estimate (e.g. on morphine), the INCB does it automatically so that the country would not be prevented to improve the medicine. We do it on the basis of a standard daily dose based on consumption in the region. If we consider that an estimate is too low, we suggest increasing the dose, but this is up to the country. The INCB advises but does not decide. We have drafted a global report on the availability of internationally controlled drugs where we give recommendations to member states. 

We decided to upgrade our work with NGOs, in particular in West Africa. We ask them to provide the INCB information about the needs of people on the medical use of controlled substances so that the INCB can have more global information than the partial one (or scarcity) sent by governments. 

Compulsory treatment – what is the position of the INCB on the use of these programmes? 

We have to deal with the words in different political, traditional and cultural uses. INCB will support all member states in their way of tackling the drug problem as long as policies are within the framework of the three UN drug conventions. Concerning the example of Cambodia, after analysing the results of the Board’s mission, we urged it to continue developing community-based drug treatment programmes. We did that because there were two systems – camps being one of them, and the other being community-based treatment programmes. The results of the community-based treatment programmes worked better. In Kazakhstan, treatment was forced on people because there was no other alternative in the community. No doubt, we will promote community-based treatment there when it is possible to do so. But the INCB is not in a position to oblige countries to close down compulsory treatment if there is no other alternative. It was not the case in Cambodia where there are community based centres. VNGOC: if the INCB could strongly encourage countries to set up community-based programmes, in line with other UN agencies, it would be appreciated by NGOs. 

This is an ongoing dialogue. NGOs are invited to be in contact with the INCB Secretariat to provide the Board with analysis and data on the problems arising in individual countries. It is important for us as the whole drug control community is aware that governments are necessary, but the work of NGOs on prevention is essential. Drug users are human beings.

NGO dialogue with INCB President Raymond Yans

During the CND High Level Segment, INCB President Raymond Yans delivered the following speech

The examination of the political declaration and plan of action focuses on the health and welfare of mankind. We could ask ourselves what kind of situation we would be in today without these conventions. Without them, we would probably have about 100 million people consume drugs across the world. In fact today, we have 5 times less. UNODC estimated that the prevalence was much lower than alcohol and tobacco, two substances that kill much more people than narcotic and psychotropic substances.

It is true that time and circumstances changed since 1961. We had less UN members, there was no internet, no globalisation, no some global health challenges such as HIV/AIDS. Incidentally, today's high concentration of THC in cannabis was also different. Not that this alters the basic principles of the 1961 Convention. The access to these substances was only for medical and scientific substances, on the advice of the World Health Organisation. The second principle is that of multilateral consensus implementation.

High Level Segment - Statement by Raymond Yans 

From the 13th to the 21st March, UN member states gathered in Vienna for the annual Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND). This year’s meeting included a High Level Segment in which countries reviewed (the lack of) progress made in drug control over the last five years, and agreed a Joint Ministerial Statement to reflect the challenges and ways forward.

Negotiations on this Statement ran for more than seven months, with countries unable to reach consensus on core issues such as harm reduction, the death penalty, and preparations for the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs. In the end, the final Statement ended up being another bland ‘as-you-were’ outcome from these multilateral discussions – something that was reflected in the relatively low turn-out from high-level officials (there were no Heads of State present, and few senior ministers).

But the statements and discussions at the meeting itself told a different story – one of a strained consensus, increasing frustration, and more open questioning of current policies. During the High Level Segment, statements from Switzerland, Uruguay, Norway, Guatemala, France, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Portugal, India and others all pointed towards the need to develop a health- and human rights-based approach to drug control. Ecuador went even further, calling for a reform of the drug control treaties: “The current UN drug system needs deep changes… We should not believe that one country or that one policy is enough to beat the problem… We need to demilitarise the current approach and accept social and cultural uses within a framework that respects human rights. Ecuador exhorts the world to be focussed on human beings not the substances”.

At the end of the High Level Segment – having failed to secure progressive language on the death penalty in the Join Ministerial Statement due to resistance from Iran, Pakistan, China and others – the European Union made an “interpretative statement” on behalf of 58 countries to declare their condemnation of capital punishment for drug offences. A responding statement from Iran, supported by more than 10 other countries, then stated that “the death penalty is not under the mandate of the CND… It is a criminal matter to be decided by each sovereign state… The death penalty serves as a deterrent against drug trafficking”.

During the ‘normal’ part of the CND meeting the following week, the debates and bad feeling were clearly persisting. In the Committee of the Whole (where individual resolutions are negotiated and adopted by consensus by Member States), frustrations were clear as Pakistan, Egypt and others continued to block any progressive language (even trying to renegotiate text that had been directly copied from the Joint Ministerial Statement, approved just a few days before). Resolutions this year covered topics as varied as recovery, ketamine, education and austerity – and the Russian Federation also submitted one on the role of sport and the ‘Olympic Ideal’ in drug prevention! But each resolution was subjected to tortuous debate, editing and obvious obstructionism.

As a result, the CND negotiations went right to the wire. The resolution outlining preparations for the 2016 UNGASS on drugs was the subject of fierce discussion and debate behind closed doors for much of the week, and compromise was eventually reached late on Friday 21st – long after most of the 275 NGOs present at CND had left.

The reason for the debate was that a number of countries – principally those from Latin America – wanted to make sure that the 2016 UNGASS was allowed to be “a broad and diverse debate without roadblocks or taboos” (in the words of Uruguay), a reference to the frustrations experienced with the Joint Ministerial Statement and the CND in general. The flash-points in the resolution focused on the role of CND in 2016, the role of other UN agencies and bodies, the role of civil society, and the physical location of the preparations (Vienna or New York). In the spirit of consensus – which permeates the proceedings at CND – language was eventually found to appease countries on both sides (the Chair threw off his headphones and everyone applauded when this was finally achieved).

Overall, it is important to look beyond the specific battles over individual paragraphs in resolutions – because the sense of frustration and dissatisfaction in Vienna was tangible and is clearly increasing over time. In a press conference, the UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov was asked how CND can claim there is a consensus on drug policy, when the use of certain drugs can lead to execution in one country and be completely legal in another. He glibly replied, 

It is a broad consensus”. But even that broad consensus is under increasing strain in the build up to a major review of the current approach in 2016.

For more details about CND, please click on the following items:

organised at CND, in particular on West Africa, cannabis regulation in Uruguay and the USA, the OAS reports on drug policy, modernising drug law enforcement, scheduling, etc.

CND 2014: Disappointing outcomes but the debate is heating up

The HCLU’s Drugreporter is launching a video campaign to debunk the offensive of the International Narcotics Control Board against drug policy reform initiatives.

The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) is almost as old as the global drug control system itself: it was created in 1961, the year when the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs was signed by UN member states. This treaty banned the non-scientific and non-medical use of some drugs (other than those popular in Western societies).

The INCB was created to monitor the implementation of the treaty and to ensure that illicit drugs are available for pain medication. The Single Convention is now more than 50 years old, but has never been evaluated. Without evidence to support the policies based on this convention, it has become dogma - holy text recited at the annual meetings of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) - light-years away from the reality on the streets. The original purpose of the convention – to protect public health and human rights – has been obliterated.

Debunk the INCB! – Video Campaign

Governments will convene in Vienna for the next ten days for the 57th Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) and its High Level Segment. They will meet to discuss the status of drug control and many will attempt to reaffirm the status quo and restate their commitment to a ‘drug-free’ world. But for the first time it is expected that a few other brave governments will no longer have the stomach to go along with this charade, and will openly question the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to drugs that has relied so heavily on law enforcement and supply reduction measures at the expense of human rights, public health and rational evidence-based policy making.

Today, at last, we can talk of real, actual legal reforms on drug policy that are outside the prohibitionist paradigm that has been dominant for so long.

In December 2013, Uruguay became the first country to make cannabis available to adults for recreational use, with the government regulating cannabis production, trade and sale. Two states in the USA, Washington and Colorado, have voted to create legally regulated cannabis markets, and Colorado began cannabis sales through licensed shops on 1 January 2014.

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Fractured beyond repair: The charade of a global consensus on drugs begins to unravel

Article originally published at Matters of Substance.

Today, at last, we can talk of real, actual legal reforms that are outside the prohibitionist paradigm that has been dominant for so long.

Demand for legal recreational cannabis in Colorado was so high in the first week of the year that many shops allegedly ran out of stock – although this is likely to calm down after the initial rush.

In New Zealand, Parliament approved the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013, which came into force last July to regulate and control less harmful new psychoactive substances rather than blanket ban all new ‘legal highs’, placing an emphasis on limiting harms to users while meeting demand. This was a brave and innovative step that acknowledged the inevitable futility of indiscriminately scheduling all new substances and criminalising their production, trade and use – a strategy that has not deterred users or those seeking to make lucrative profits from the drug trade by introducing ever-evolving new, and potentially more harmful, ‘legal highs’.

These developments are unparalleled in terms of how progressive and bold policy makers have been in breaking away from the global consensus on punitive prohibition, and it seems certain now that the positive trend is irreversible – in particular, with respect to cannabis.

These changes ‘on the ground’ provide a dynamic new backdrop to the global debates on drug policy that are happening at the United Nations (UN). The next UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs will now take place in 2016 – 3 years earlier than originally planned, at the behest of Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico (supported by 95 other member states through a UN resolution). A UN special session is the biggest international governmental forum for discussing issues of concern to the global community.

The impetus for pushing for an earlier UNGASS on drugs followed growing calls for reform from across Latin America at the highest political level. Many Latin American countries have paid a high price for enforcing the war on drugs, spending millions of dollars trying to stem the flow of drugs out of the region but to no avail and with devastating consequences in terms of security, human rights, development and public health.

In 2012, frustrated with the high economic and human costs of these largely ineffective efforts, Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos and Guatemala’s Otto Pérez Molina, both sitting presidents, openly questioned the underlying premise of the dominant approach to international drug control and called for a debate on alternatives. This unprecedented development not only led to the rescheduling of the UNGASS but also the release of a groundbreaking report from the Organization of American States (OAS) in May 2013. The OAS report highlights the need for a serious rethink of drug policy and outlines options for the full decriminalisation of drug use and the legal regulation of cannabis.

The OAS process set the wheels in motion for taking this debate beyond the hemisphere. At the UN General Assembly in October last year, President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico and President Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica added their voices to those of Santos and Pérez Molina by calling for more effective responses to drug trafficking based on promoting public health, respect for human rights and harm reduction. All four presidents united in calling for an open and wide-ranging debate leading up to the 2016 UNGASS.

While it’s clear the existing consensus is breaking and there is a growing desire to find viable alternatives to the War on Drugs, there are still powerful countries who are staunchly opposed to any kind of reform. The stark reality of these tensions will be played out next month in Vienna (the UN seat of international drug policy) when there will be a special high-level meeting (just before the annual meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs). This meeting is the culmination of a mid-term review of progress against the last international agreement on drug control – the 2009 Political Declaration and Plan of Action on the world drug problem. The review process began some months ago with the negotiation of a Joint Ministerial Statement that will be adopted in March. This statement will set the scene for the upcoming UNGASS, so the final debate in Vienna on 13–14 March will be interesting.

An early draft of the statement was leaked to the press in November, and the divisions between those governments supporting more progressive approaches and those opposing change were apparent. For those working in the field of drug policy, the political lines were predictable – many European Union countries, Switzerland and some Latin American governments promote progress towards reform while China, Pakistan and the Russia Federation argue fiercely for the status quo and a strong reaffirmation of the existing commitment to the achievement of a drug-free world.

The inclusion of the words ‘harm reduction’ remains a contentious issue. In the negotiation of the 2009 Political Declaration, this was hard fought and unfortunately lost, although a coalition of 25 member states made it clear they would interpret the compromise language of ‘related support services’ to mean harm reduction. Human rights is another area that creates tension, with more inflexible governments still questioning the primacy of the human rights instruments over the implementation of the drug control conventions. Meanwhile, calls for an end to the use of the death penalty for drug offences are met with firm resistance from China.

Yet there is one important and definite difference between these negotiations and the preceding ones – the position of the US has fundamentally changed. No longer among the hardliners, the US has acknowledged, both at the UN but also more recently domestically, that the over-reliance on incarceration has failed. In August 2013, US Attorney General Eric Holder admitted that mandatory minimum sentences for drug offences were ‘draconian’ and that too many Americans had been imprisoned for too long for no good law enforcement justification. He made it clear that the status quo was unsustainable and damaging.

The domino effect of cannabis regulation at state level, with Alaska very likely to be next this year following Washington and Colorado (and several more states have concrete plans in the pipeline), makes the US less sure-footed of condemning other countries for not stringently adhering to a zero-tolerance approach. Cannabis regulation for recreational use is outside of the scope of the current UN treaty framework for drugs, which does create a technical problem for the US (although so far they have managed to avoid any real condemnation from other governments) and also for Uruguay. The International Narcotics Control Board, however, has weighed in on both developments and publicly chided the US and Uruguay for contravening the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which lists cannabis in the same schedule as heroin and cocaine.

The status of cannabis within the UN treaty system is on the agenda of the next World Health Organization Expert Committee meeting later this year, after which there could be a recommendation to change its current place within the schedules. While wholesale revision of the UN conventions does not seem like an imminent possibility, it is an issue that is becoming more awkward. At the 56th Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), which took place in March 2013, Uruguay, Argentina, Guatemala and the Czech Republic alluded to the need for treaty reform. One country has managed to renegotiate its terms of engagement with the treaty system – in 2013 Bolivia readhered to the 1961 convention with a reservation on the coca leaf, having withdrawn from the treaty a year earlier.

It is not yet clear what exactly can be expected from the UNGASS, but as we move towards 2016, the so-called ‘Vienna consensus’ on drugs will be no more. The divisions between governments on this issue have become too visible to ignore and the UNGASS is a perfect opportunity for an honest assessment of the evidence that reflects the changing tone of the drugs debate. At this juncture, it would be naïve to say the War on Drugs is over, but a retreat from some of the harmful and repressive aspects of this war has undoubtedly begun.

Sounding the drug war retreat

Although marijuana remains illegal in the Netherlands, in 1976 the Dutch government began tolerating retail sales of small amounts by so-called coffee shops. Thirty-eight years later, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), a U.N. agency that describes its mission as “monitoring and supporting Governments’ compliance with the international drug control treaties,” is still complaining about that policy. In its latest annual report, issued this week, the INCB notes that the Dutch “tolerance policy” (

) “allows small amounts of cannabis to be sold and abused.” (INCB officials, like hardline drug warriors everywhere, define all recreational consumption of marijuana as abuse.) According to the INCB, such tolerance is intolerable: “The Board reiterates its position that such ‘coffee shops’ are in contravention of the provisions of the international drug control conventions.”

If the INCB does not like Amsterdam’s cannabis cafés, which are technically illegal, you can imagine how it feels about Denver’s state-licensed pot shops. Actually, you don’t have to imagine. INCB President Raymond Yans, never one to hold back criticism of governments he deems insufficiently zealous in suppressing the consumption of arbitrarily proscribed intoxicants, spells it out in black and white. “We deeply regret the developments at the state level in Colorado and Washington, in the United States, regarding the legalization of the recreational use of cannabis,” he writes. “INCB reiterates that these developments contravene the provisions of the drug control conventions, which limit the use of cannabis to medical and scientific use only.”

The “developments” to which Yans refers involved the elimination of certain criminal penalties by ballot initiative, which he says the U.S. government should not allow. Yet under our federalist system, states have no obligation to punish everything Congress decides to treat as a crime, and the drug control treaties say compliance is subject to “constitutional limitations.” So Yans is blowing smoke when he says the U.S. government is legally required to impose marijuana prohibition on recalcitrant states, something it has no power to do under our Constitution.

More generally, observes Richard Elliott, executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, “The INCB’s claim that its narrow, restrictive interpretations of the [drug control] conventions override domestic constitutional law cannot stand in light of the actual wording of the conventions.” The board’s insistence that all countries conform to its reading of the anti-drug treaties, regardless of what their own laws say, is of a piece with the INCB’s zero-tolerance scolding, the escalation of which may signal a worldwide re-evaluation of the never-ending, always failing war on drugs.

Although the INCB seems to see its role as whipping countries into line when they stray too far from the proper prohibitionist path, that function was not part of its mandate when it was created by the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in 1961. “The INCB was created to oversee the flow of narcotics internationally, making sure that countries can meet their licit requirements for essential pain medicines while monitoring to ensure that licit supplies don’t seep into the illicit market,” says John Collins, coordinator of the International Drug Policy Project at the London School of Economics. “The INCB fundamentally was created as a number-crunching and technocratic body that is supposed to provide technical assistance for international control efforts in a cooperative way. Its current role as global enforcer or ‘guardian’ of the treaties, as they like to call themselves, is not mentioned in any treaty.” Beginning in the 1970s, Collins says, the United States and other “ideologically prohibitionist states” transformed the INCB into a bully pulpit dedicated to promoting their agenda. As a result, he says, the board “is consistently willing to overstep its treaty mandate and advocate a set of policies that have no basis in either science or treaty law.”

A recent INCB position paper, for example, criticizes the Supreme Court of Canada for “permitting a ‘drug injection room’ to continue to operate in Vancouver.” The INCB is referring to Insite, a nonprofit, government-subsidized clinic where addicts inject drugs under medical supervision. Insite, which does not supply drugs and offers addiction treatment along with health care, aims to reduce overdose deaths, the transmission of blood-borne diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis, and other medical problems associated with unsafe injection practices. A 2011 study published by 

 found that overdose deaths had fallen by 35 percent in the neighborhood near Insite since the clinic opened, compared to 9 percent in Vancouver as a whole. “Insite saves lives,” the Canadian Supreme Court declared that year. “Its benefits have been proven.” The court ordered the federal health minister to continue granting Insite an exemption under Canada’s Controlled Drugs and Substances Act so that addicts could use it without fear of arrest.

That ruling was based on the court’s interpretation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. “The court said that the government had violated [drug users’] constitutional rights to security of the person, to liberty, and to life by denying [the] exemption,” Elliott says. “In other words, to extend a blanket criminal prohibition on drug possession so far as to even criminalize people using a health facility such as Insite is to violate human rights and is unconstitutional because it is overly broad and because it has a grossly disproportionate impact on the health of people needing such a service. These are fundamental principles of justice that form part of Canada’s constitutional law, and therefore any obligation alleged to exist under the drug control conventions is subject to them.”

The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs says compliance is subject to “constitutional limitations” and undertaken with “due regard to [signatories’] constitutional, legal and administrative systems.” The 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances and the 1988 Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances contain similar provisions. The 1988 treaty says a country’s criminalization of possession for personal use is “subject to its constitutional principles and the basic concepts of its legal system.”

Furthermore, as noted in a 2002 memo from lawyers at the U.N. Drug Control Program (now subsumed by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime), harm reduction programs like Insite can be defended as fulfilling the treaty obligation to “treat, rehabilitate and reintegrate drug addicts.” Such efforts, the memo says, also would be consistent with a U.N. resolution calling for policies aimed at “reducing the adverse consequences of drug abuse.” Yet the INCB insists there is no such leeway, because safe injection sites “promote social and legal tolerance of drug abuse.”

The INCB takes the same stance regarding “safer crack kits,” which typically include a glass stem, a rubber mouthpiece, and brass screens; they sometimes also come with hand wipes, alcohol swabs, and lip balm. Richard Elliott’s organization explains that the kits are intended to “reduce the risk of burned or cracked lips and the associated risk of becoming infected with blood-borne viruses such as HCV or HIV.” But according to the INCB, governments that allow the distribution of such kits, like governments that tolerate safe injection sites, are failing to meet their treaty obligations.

“There is no legal basis for that position,” says Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, director of the Open Society Global Drug Policy Program. “The drug control treaties limit certain drug-related activities to medical and scientific purposes. Public health is the driving ethos behind heroin-assisted therapy and supervised consumption rooms. This organization’s discomfort with harm reduction is ideologically driven, and it has nothing to do with the drug control treaties.”

If harm reduction is apt to irk the INCB, how can a country win the board’s praise? Ask the Saudis. In last year’s annual report, the INCB saluted “the commitment of the Government of Saudi Arabia to comply with its obligations under the three international drug control conventions to which it is a party” and commended “the country’s government agencies involved in drug control for their commitment and efforts in the fight against drug abuse and drug trafficking.” Those efforts include cutting off the heads of drug traffickers, which the Saudi government did at least 82 times in 2011, according to a 2012 report from Harm Reduction International.

When that organization asked about the INCB’s position on the death penalty for drug offenses, the board was suddenly keen to respect “internal law,” which it deems irrelevant in the context of harm reduction and marijuana decriminalization. “The determination of sanctions applicable to drug-related offences,” the INCB said, “remains the exclusive prerogative of each State and therefore lie[s] beyond the mandate and powers which have been conferred upon the Board by the international community.”

About those powers: Does it really matter what the board says? Maybe not, says Alex Kreit, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law who specializes in drug policy. “I think it’s telling,” he says, that the INCB “references decades-old policies in the examples of things it dislikes: coffee shops, safe injection sites, medical marijuana laws. The INCB has complained for years about these things, but at the end of the day, that’s really all it can do. It doesn’t have any direct enforcement authority over parties to the Single Convention. All it can do is say ‘you’re out of compliance’ and, at worst, recommend that other treaty parties stop the import/export of drugs to the countries it doesn’t like. As a result, I believe the more statements like this that the INCB puts out, the sillier it makes itself look.”

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