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The stages of the international drug control system
Author(s) -
CARSTAIRS CATHERINE
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
drug and alcohol review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.018
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1465-3362
pISSN - 0959-5236
DOI - 10.1080/09595230500125179
Subject(s) - criminalization , drug control , harm , control (management) , harm reduction , league , political science , drug , demand reduction , international trade , business , development economics , public administration , medicine , law , economics , pharmacology , psychiatry , management , public health , physics , nursing , astronomy
This paper argues that the history of the international drug control system of the League of Nations/United Nations can be divided into three cumulative stages. The first stage, the supply stage, dates back to early part of the 20th century, and aimed to reduce the supply of drugs through careful monitoring and trade regulations. This has remained the dominant control strategy. In the middle of the century, demand control, in the form of treatment and criminalization of the individual user, began to appear. This was the least successful stage. Finally, in the 1980s, the dangers of the drug traffic assumed an important place on the international agenda and measures to reduce drug‐related organized crime were enacted. To date, this has been a process of proliferation of regulatory strategies. Recently, new challenges to the international drug control system have emerged, including well‐funded non‐governmental organizations critical of the war on drugs, and the adoption of harm reduction measures in national policies around the world.