IDPC hace un llamado al Comité de Expertos en Farmacodependencia (CEFD) para rectificar el error histórico del listado de la hoja de coca, reafirmar los derechos indígenas y garantizar su participación a lo largo del proceso de revisión. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.


Statement by the International Drug Policy Consortium at the occasion of the 47th WHO Expert Committee on Drug Dependence

Delivered by Marie Nougier, IDPC Head of Research and Communications

Thank you very much for giving me the floor. My name is Marie Nougier and I am here representing the International Drug Policy Consortium – a global network of over 190 NGOs that come together to promote drug policies grounded in social justice and human rights.

I am based in the UK, and my statement relates to the critical review of the coca leaf.

This critical review is coming nearly 75 years after the UN banned the traditional uses of the plant by listing it in Schedule I of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. This is despite the fact that the coca leaf has been used for millennia by Indigenous Peoples in the Andean-Amazonian region for traditional, religious, ancestral and medicinal purposes.

At the time, the decision to place the plant under strict international control was based on colonial and racist arguments, as is further explained in Bolivia’s dossier annexed to its request for the critical review.

First of all, IDPC calls on the ECDD to correct this historical wrong – and to explicitly distance itself from past racist arguments made by WHO officials themselves regarding the plant.

Secondly, since 1961, a large body of research has shown that the coca leaf does not result in health harms, but may, in fact, have possible benefits, including as a medicine, as a food supplement, and for social, cultural and religious purposes. In addition, the basic premise of the 1961 Single Convention is that plants are only scheduled as a narcotic drug when they are considered to produce harmful effects similar to other scheduled substances. This is certainly not the case for the coca leaf when compared to the effects of cocaine use.

Thirdly, various UN entities have increasingly recognised the need to decolonise drug policy and align the UN drug control regime with human rights – including Indigenous Peoples’ rights. This includes statements from the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Rights, and resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs and the Human Rights Council.

As with all UN bodies and entities, the World Health Organization is also bound by the obligation to respect, protect and fulfil human rights – which is one of the overarching pillars of the United Nations. As such, any scheduling decision by the ECDD should also take due account of human rights considerations.

We therefore welcome the decision made by the ECDD to consider the ‘traditional uses’ of the coca leaf, as one of the key topics of the critical review report. We hope that this will ensure that the traditional knowledge and culture of Andean-Amazonian Indigenous Peoples are duly recognised and seriously taken into account as the ECDD conducts its critical review and elaborates its recommendations on the plant.

Linked to this, my last point relates to the need to ensure a transparent and inclusive process that enables the meaningful participation of Indigenous Peoples in the critical review. So far, Indigenous Peoples can only feed into the process by participating in the opening segment of the ECDD session today, and in a year’s time at its 48th session. Considering that the right to cultivate and use the coca leaf constitutes a major part of their ancestral, traditional and religious practices, it would be highly recommended that Indigenous Peoples are consulted at various stages of the review process, including:

In the information collection phase, ensuring that the questionnaire that will be shared with member states next year can also be shared with Indigenous experts

By ensuring that Indigenous Peoples can receive the draft critical review report, and are able to discuss its conclusions at a special meeting of the ECDD

By inviting Indigenous experts to participate in specific segments of the 48th session of the ECDD that relate to the coca leaf, and not just the public hearings.

And finally, by soliciting the advice of other UN entities that work on Indigenous Rights’ issues.

, submitted as a written contribution for this ECDD session, and which further elaborates on the points I have made today.

Thank you very much for your consideration and I wish you a fruitful session.

Los derechos, conocimientos y experiencia de los pueblos indígenas deben estar en el centro de la revisión de la hoja de coca – Declaración del IDPC al Comité de Farmacodependencia de la OMS

For the provisional agenda of the ECDD, click 

See the following link to find the list of substances, critical and pre review reports, 47th Member State Questionnaire, as well as other documents relevant to the forty-seventh ECDD: 

https://www.who.int/groups/ecdd/forty-seventh-ecdd-documents 

47ª reunión del Comité de Expertos de la OMS en Farmacodependencia (ECDD)

Casi 75 años después de que las Naciones Unidas llamara a la abolición de los usos tradicionales de la hoja de coca, el mundo tiene una nueva oportunidad de corregir este grave error histórico. La Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS), por iniciativa de Bolivia, llevará a cabo un “examen crítico” de la hoja de coca durante el próximo año. Basándose en sus conclusiones, la OMS podría recomendar cambios en la clasificación de la coca según los tratados de control de drogas de la ONU. Las recomendaciones de la OMS serán sometidas a la aprobación de la Comisión de Estupefacientes (CND, por sus siglas en inglés) de la ONU, y podrían ser votadas en 2025.

Cambiar el estatus de la coca en los tratados sobre drogas podría reivindicar los derechos de los pueblos indígenas y abrir mercados internacionales legales para los productos naturales de la coca, fortaleciendo las economías andinas y llevando los beneficios de la coca a un número cada vez mayor de personas en el mundo. El proceso de revisión de la coca también puede ayudar a 

 un sistema de tratados de drogas que sigue sumido en sesgos colonialistas y prejuicios raciales de los cuales surgió a mediados del siglo XX. Desde la 

Oficina en Washington para Asuntos Latinoamericanos (WOLA)

 y Transnational Institute (TNI) seguiremos de cerca el proceso de revisión de la coca y examinaremos los aspectos clave del debate. En esta primera entrega de 

Crónicas de la Coca: Monitoreo de la revisión de la ONU sobre la coca - Número 1: Bolivia desafía la prohibición de la hoja de coca por parte de la ONU

El IDPC invoca al Comité a considerar los profundos impactos de las opciones legales y de políticas que se pueden desencadenar con la clasificación en la lista de sustancias controladas a nivel internacional, y a recoger debidamente las lecciones aprendidas de controles anteriores a nivel nacional, tomándolas en cuenta antes de avanzar en la clasificación del kratom en la lista de sustancias controladas. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

International Drug Policy Consortium Statement - Pre-review of Kratom, mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine at the 44th WHO Expert Committee on Drug Dependence, 11 – 15 October 2021

This written submission is by the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC): a global network of more than 190 NGOs that promotes drug policies grounded in the principles of health, human rights, development, and civil society engagement. As the ECDD is planning to conduct pre-reviews on Kratom and its active ingredients mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine, we offer some insights and recommendations on the impacts of criminalisation that have resulted from national policies.

Despite the UNODC categorising kratom as a new psychoactive substance (NPS), it has been used for centuries as a traditional medicine in Southeast Asia, particularly amongst rural communities in Thailand, Malaysia and Myanmar. Kratom is often consumed by chewing the fresh leaves and boiling fresh or dried leaves to drink as a decoction or herbal tea. Consumption of kratom is culturally accepted in ways similar to drinking coffee and tea. It is commonly consumed amongst agricultural workers to relieve the physical pains of hard labour.

In Thailand, the kratom plant was classified as illegal in 1943. However, it was not until 2004 that the laws became widely enforced in practice, due partly to the practice of mixing kratom with beverages containing caffeine and codeine-based medications that emerged in 2003 but also to the war on drugs launched by then-Prime Minister Thaksin. By 2019, the government reported that kratom cases constituted one sixth (47,809 of 304,784) of all drug-related court cases during the January to October 2019 period.

In August 2021, after almost two decades of advocacy for ending the criminalisation of kratom to allow its use for medical, research, personal and traditional purposes, legal reforms in Thailand to decriminalise the use and cultivation of the kratom plant came into effect. Over 12,000 people convicted for kratom-related offences were granted an amnesty. Elsewhere in Asia, including in Malaysia, Myanmar and Singapore, the use, possession and supply of kratom remains punishable; the UNODC reported in 2011 that 14,556 people (accounting for 8% of all drug-related arrests) were arrested for kratom in the region in 2010.

It is crucial to acknowledge that there are harms and benefits associated with drug policy. How a substance or plant is scheduled can have profound outcomes for consumers. A punitive legal framework that criminalises kratom use has caused enormous harm. We call on the ECDD to consider the profound impacts of legal and policy choices that may be triggered by international scheduling and to take the lessons from past national controls duly into account before taking any further steps towards bringing kratom under international control.

Declaración del IDPC con ocasión de la 44ta reunión del Comité de Expertos de la OMS en Drogas que Causan Dependencia

Se requiere acción urgente para asegurar que los sistemas nacionales mejoren el acceso a medicinas controladas para personas afectadas por emergencias, incluyendo las pandemias. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

Access to controlled medicines in humanitarian emergencies remains constrained

Recognizing World Humanitarian Day 2021, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) once again call on governments to facilitate access to medicines containing controlled substances in emergency settings, including during pandemics and the increasing number of climate-related disasters.

The theme of World Humanitarian Day 2021 acknowledged the impact of climate-related emergencies. Over 7,348 disasters have been reporting in the last two decades of which 40% are now estimated to be climate-related according to United Nations reports. The impact of their increasing number combined with the persistent COVID-19 pandemic creates a complex landscape for ensuring access to controlled medicines in emergencies.

A year after an earlier joint statement, unprecedented trade restrictions, shortages of medicines, surges in infections, and new variants of SARS-CoV-2 compound the problems related to maintaining a supply of controlled medicines, according to WHO and the World Trade Organization.

The problem of access to controlled medicines in emergencies

There is an increase in demand for controlled medicines in emergency responses. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, WHO has identified over 20 medicines with global-level shortages, including four that contain controlled substances that are used in intensive care units for the treatment of severe cases of COVID-19. Internationally controlled medicines such as morphine, diazepam, and midazolam listed as WHO essential medicines, are vital for the management of pain, palliative care, surgical care and anesthesia, and treatment of drug-use disorders, mental health, and neurological conditions.

Shortages impact countries of all income levels. Low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) are often disproportionately impacted by shortages--partly related to their relative purchasing power in international medicines markets and partly because specialized systems to manage controlled medicines do not always accommodate sufficient exceptions for emergencies.

Urgent action is needed to ensure that national systems improve access to controlled medicines for people affected by emergencies, including pandemics, and climate-related disasters.

Declaración conjunta de la JIFE, el UNODC y la OMS sobre acceso a medicinas controladas en emergencias

El IDPC formula recomendaciones sobre el tramadol y el cannabis, con la esperanza de que contribuyan a los debates que mantendrá el Comité de Expertos en Farmacodependencia de la OMS (ECDD) durante su reunión de noviembre. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

The Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD) of the World Health Organization (WHO) will hold its 41st Meeting in Geneva on 12th to 16th November 2018. The ECDD is the body mandated by the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 and the UN Convention on Psychotropic Drugs of 1971 to conduct scientific reviews of substances with a view to understanding their public health risks and therapeutic uses, and to recommend their assignment to the appropriate schedule within the international drug control conventions.

In the context of the proliferation of new psychoactive substances, the principle of scientific review is of special significance. Many governments are presently subject to anxieties that can drive the process of scheduling – not on an evidential basis, but a political and ideological one. This gives an added importance to the Expert Committee, that of ensuring its recommendations are made on the basis of scientific evidence, as per its mandate and despite political pressures.

The significance of this role is underscored by the UNGASS Outcome Document of 2016, which devotes an entire chapter to the issue of access to controlled medicines. Among a broad collection of substances subject to critical review at the 41st ECDD meeting, an especially important medicine is included: tramadol, which is currently not under international control.5 Certain countries have called for tramadol to be placed under international control, in particular, Egypt, which submitted a conference room paper on the issue to the 60th Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs.

In the meantime, discussions around the scheduling of cannabis at national and global levels have accelerated over the past few years, while more and more countries are adopting medicinal cannabis schemes. For the first time in the history of the current international drug control regime, a critical review of cannabis and its derivatives is also planned for the 41st ECDD meeting.

This IDPC advocacy note will provide recommendations on both tramadol and cannabis, with the hope that it will inform the discussions of the Expert Committee for its meeting in November.

Contribución al 41º Comité de Expertos en Farmacodependencia de la OMS: Recomendaciones del IDPC sobre el cannabis y el tramadol

En esta nota de síntesis, el IDPC ofrece elementos de análisis y recomendaciones clave sobre el CBD y el tramadol para la venidera reunión del ECDD que tendrá lugar en noviembre de 2017. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

Suscríbase a las Alertas mensuales del IDPC para recibir información sobre cuestiones relacionadas con políticas sobre drogas.

The Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD) of the World Health Organization (WHO) will hold its 39th meeting from 6th to 10th November 2017 in Geneva. The ECDD is mandated by the 1961 and 1971 UN drug conventions with the task of undertaking scientific reviews of substances and recommending their appropriate scheduling to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), taking into account both risks related to non-medical use and therapeutic usefulness.

In the context of the proliferation of new psychoactive substances, the principle of scientific review is of greater importance than ever. In this regard, scheduling plays a key role in both restricting non-medical use of controlled substances and ensuring access to controlled medicines. The UNGASS Outcome Document gives due prominence to ensuring access to controlled medicines with an entire chapter dedicated to the issue, thereby raising the profile of the ECDD, which work in maintaining the principle of scientific review is critical and fully supported by IDPC.