The Lessons of May 58th. How We Tried to Change the World at the 58th Session of the United Nations INCB (International Narcotics Control Board) - Vienna, 9 May 1995
Kamal Chaouachi, Researcher (tobacco issues), Paris
8 July 2008
Canadians are outraged, but also peoples of the world in general and especially South Americans these days. From Caracas, Johanna Levy recently informed us how Bolivia and Peru have strongly rejected some of the recommendations published in the last INCB (International Narcotics Control Board) report. Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, would support Evo Morales, the Bolivian one, and would have gone as far as publicly declaring that he chews coca leaves every morning “to keep fit” [1-2]. Now, here what this document states: "Recommendation 7: […] The Board calls upon the Governments of Bolivia and Peru to initiate action without delay with a view to eliminating uses of coca leaf, including coca leaf chewing, that are contrary to the 1961 Convention [etc.]" [3].
The picture drawn by Dr Small and Dr Drucker in their study on INCB is very gloomy [4]. I am all the more concerned that before being absorbed in tobacco issues, I have worked some years in that field, as an observer and actor too [5-6]. From inside the United Nations system itself, we have actually tried to shake that unbending “quasi-judicial” (sic) body called INCB. This was in Spring 1995 and we were working at UNESCO, a UN agency having a unique educational, scientific and cultural mandate in the world. As a very reduced team (three then two persons) in charge of innovative approaches in the field of prevention of drug abuse through education, we were asked by our superiors to work on the preparation of the 58th session of the INCB convened in Vienna on the 9th of May 1995. My colleague was the head of our drug project and co-author of a visionary book [7]. He viewed this opportunity as a possibility to make the drug field move forward on a global scale. His basic though brilliant idea was that UNESCO, by virtue of its prestige (however not necessarily shared by General De Gaulle for whom this organisation was noting but a “machin” [whatnot]…), and above-mentioned mandate, could trigger an inter-institutional debate within the UN system.
Consequently, we drafted the core of the speech the Director-general (DG) of UNESCO would deliver there. Safe a few changes, we were pleased to see that the key messages, further to careful peer-review, were well understood, shared and accepted by our superiors and, eventually, the cabinet of the DG itself [8]. In these conditions, and perhaps for the first time in the modern history of Prohibition, an illustrious high-level United Nations agency Director-general, in person:
> WARNED against “crop eradication campaigns” and the use of hazardous pesticides, recalling, for comparison, the tragic effects of the “orange agent” used by the US army in the war it waged against Vietnam;
> REMINDED the INCB that the latter “did not consider the views of those who argue for a so-called "alternative regulation" of a number of drugs”, “distinct from the arguments of those who advocate schemes for free and total deregulation”;
> INVITED United Nations agencies to “seriously consider and discuss the adoption of so-called "harm reduction" policies implemented in various countries as part of a global drug control policy and programme”;
> CITED many experts arguing in favour of "legal control of cannabis by-products in specific places where access is forbidden to the under-aged, and the concurrent availability of opiates in pharmacies and on medical prescription)";
> CONCLUDED that “close collaboration is necessary to put an end to what has been going on for too long: an endless war against a faceless enemy” [8-9];
> etc. [8].
CLAMOURS OF INDIGNATION. Of course, more outspoken ideas could be found in the original last but one draft version we are in possession of. For instance, we suggested, among others, that “concerning heroine, the medical prescription of opiates, including opium, could be studied”. the possibility Anyway, the only feedback we received from Vienna was that the speech sort of “raised the roof” there and clamours of indignation could be heard in the official audio recordings… This event was briefly commented upon in a book published two years later in Paris [10]. The latter document also brought out the declaration of a Cuban delegate at the 49th UN General Assembly who suggested new strategies free of any form interventionism: « Este nuevo diseno [de un enfoque mas equilibrado y abarcador del problema [del uso indebido de drogas, la produccion y el tráfico ilicito de drogas] parte, en alguna medida, del reconocimiento implicito del fracaso e inviabilidad de anteriores estrategias fundamentadas en la represion de la oferta con un corte netamente intervencionista » [11].
We note that today, such a motto is put forward by the new Bolivian president [1]. Interestingly, the Transnational Institute states: ”on March 14, 1995, the WHO announced the publication of the WHO/UNICRI Cocaine Initiative to the international press. Shortly thereafter “on May 9, 1995, in Commission B of the 48th World Health Assembly in Geneva, the US representative said he was “surprised to note that the package seemed to make a case for the positive uses of cocaine, claiming that use of the coca leaf did not lead to noticeable damage to mental or physical health, that the positive health effects of coca leaf chewing might be transferable from traditional settings to other countries and cultures, and that coca production provided financial benefits to peasants. He added that his government would suspend financial support if the WHO did not dissociate itself from the study’s conclusions and if it adopted a position justifying coca production […]””[12]. Further to such a pressure, this global study was never published. Johanna Levy states that it was incinerated [1-2].
Unfortunately, as far as harm reduction is concerned, the world has not changed that much since then. Perhaps were we too young, naïve and idealists. In the light of the above, after reading again Dr Small and Dr Drucker’ study on the INCB Inquisition, remembering a Rebetiko song (see further down) and the poem written by my colleague on the occasion of a tragic though not irrelevant event, it is clear that the official position of the INCB has virtually not evolved [4,13]. Thirteen years later, I am certainly less younger and naïve but I do remain as idealist as then.
Kamal Chaouachi
_____________
References:
[1] Levy J. Une petite feuille verte nommée coca [A Small Green Leaf Named Coca]. Le Monde Diplomatique 2008 (May):20-1.
[6] PEDDRO (Prevention-EDucation-DROgues). Quarterly Newsletter for the Networking of Information and Experiences in the Field of Prevention of Drug Abuse through Education [English, French, Spanish]. 5 issues under the supervision of Editor in-chief Olivier Ralet. UNESCO, European Commission. 1993-95.
[7] Stengers I., Ralet O : Drogues: le défi hollandais [The Drug Question in the Light of the Dutch Challenging Experience]. Paris, Laboratoires Delagrange, 1991.
[8] Mayor F. Address by Mr Federico Mayor, Director-general of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) at the 58th Session of the INCB (United Nations International Narcotics Control Board), Vienna, 9 May 1995
[9] Mayor F. [quotation]. Exclusion and Poverty: Seedbeds of Violence, The Director-General’s Newsletter, issue 4. Paris, UNESCO, Sept. 1995.
[10] Chaouachi K: Le narguilé. Anthropologie d’un mode d’usage de drogues douces [An Anthropology of Narghile: its Use and Soft Drugs]. Paris : L'Harmattan ; 1997 (263 pages) : pp. 74-5.
[11] Fernández J.A., Declaración del delegado de Cuba, Sr. Juan Antonio Fernández en el tema 98 del Programa: Fizcalización Internacional de Estupefacientes, República de Cuba-Misión permanente ante las Naciones Unidas, Tercera Comisión, 49 Asamblea General, New York, 4 Nov 1994.
[12] Transnational Institute. Cocayes, Cocaine, no ? Legal options for the coca leaf. Drugs and Conflicts 2006 (May); Issue n°13.
http://www.tni.org/reports/drugs/debate13.pdf
[13] Sajid KM. Poem in Punjabi (with English translation): « Dhuein da Tharki » [The Addict of Smoke]
A Rebetiko song about a police raid on a teke (tavern), to be found in above mentioned reference 10, together with other Rebetiko songs translated from Greek into English by Lisa Kritikos. Source: Holst G: Road to Rembetika: music of a Greek sub-culture, songs of love, sorrow and hashish. Denise Harvey, Limni, Evia (Greece), 1994.
***********************************
Competing interests
No competing interests. For more details, see: http://www.harmreductionjournal.com/content/5/1/19/comments#304579
Harm Reduction Journal
The Lessons of May 58th. How We Tried to Change the World at the 58th Session of the United Nations INCB (International Narcotics Control Board) - Vienna, 9 May 1995
8 July 2008
Canadians are outraged, but also peoples of the world in general and especially South Americans these days. From Caracas, Johanna Levy recently informed us how Bolivia and Peru have strongly rejected some of the recommendations published in the last INCB (International Narcotics Control Board) report. Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, would support Evo Morales, the Bolivian one, and would have gone as far as publicly declaring that he chews coca leaves every morning “to keep fit” [1-2]. Now, here what this document states: "Recommendation 7: […] The Board calls upon the Governments of Bolivia and Peru to initiate action without delay with a view to eliminating uses of coca leaf, including coca leaf chewing, that are contrary to the 1961 Convention [etc.]" [3].
The picture drawn by Dr Small and Dr Drucker in their study on INCB is very gloomy [4]. I am all the more concerned that before being absorbed in tobacco issues, I have worked some years in that field, as an observer and actor too [5-6]. From inside the United Nations system itself, we have actually tried to shake that unbending “quasi-judicial” (sic) body called INCB. This was in Spring 1995 and we were working at UNESCO, a UN agency having a unique educational, scientific and cultural mandate in the world. As a very reduced team (three then two persons) in charge of innovative approaches in the field of prevention of drug abuse through education, we were asked by our superiors to work on the preparation of the 58th session of the INCB convened in Vienna on the 9th of May 1995. My colleague was the head of our drug project and co-author of a visionary book [7]. He viewed this opportunity as a possibility to make the drug field move forward on a global scale. His basic though brilliant idea was that UNESCO, by virtue of its prestige (however not necessarily shared by General De Gaulle for whom this organisation was noting but a “machin” [whatnot]…), and above-mentioned mandate, could trigger an inter-institutional debate within the UN system.
Consequently, we drafted the core of the speech the Director-general (DG) of UNESCO would deliver there. Safe a few changes, we were pleased to see that the key messages, further to careful peer-review, were well understood, shared and accepted by our superiors and, eventually, the cabinet of the DG itself [8]. In these conditions, and perhaps for the first time in the modern history of Prohibition, an illustrious high-level United Nations agency Director-general, in person:
> WARNED against “crop eradication campaigns” and the use of hazardous pesticides, recalling, for comparison, the tragic effects of the “orange agent” used by the US army in the war it waged against Vietnam;
> REMINDED the INCB that the latter “did not consider the views of those who argue for a so-called "alternative regulation" of a number of drugs”, “distinct from the arguments of those who advocate schemes for free and total deregulation”;
> INVITED United Nations agencies to “seriously consider and discuss the adoption of so-called "harm reduction" policies implemented in various countries as part of a global drug control policy and programme”;
> CITED many experts arguing in favour of "legal control of cannabis by-products in specific places where access is forbidden to the under-aged, and the concurrent availability of opiates in pharmacies and on medical prescription)";
> CONCLUDED that “close collaboration is necessary to put an end to what has been going on for too long: an endless war against a faceless enemy” [8-9];
> etc. [8].
CLAMOURS OF INDIGNATION. Of course, more outspoken ideas could be found in the original last but one draft version we are in possession of. For instance, we suggested, among others, that “concerning heroine, the medical prescription of opiates, including opium, could be studied”. the possibility Anyway, the only feedback we received from Vienna was that the speech sort of “raised the roof” there and clamours of indignation could be heard in the official audio recordings… This event was briefly commented upon in a book published two years later in Paris [10]. The latter document also brought out the declaration of a Cuban delegate at the 49th UN General Assembly who suggested new strategies free of any form interventionism: « Este nuevo diseno [de un enfoque mas equilibrado y abarcador del problema [del uso indebido de drogas, la produccion y el tráfico ilicito de drogas] parte, en alguna medida, del reconocimiento implicito del fracaso e inviabilidad de anteriores estrategias fundamentadas en la represion de la oferta con un corte netamente intervencionista » [11].
We note that today, such a motto is put forward by the new Bolivian president [1]. Interestingly, the Transnational Institute states: ”on March 14, 1995, the WHO announced the publication of the WHO/UNICRI Cocaine Initiative to the international press. Shortly thereafter “on May 9, 1995, in Commission B of the 48th World Health Assembly in Geneva, the US representative said he was “surprised to note that the package seemed to make a case for the positive uses of cocaine, claiming that use of the coca leaf did not lead to noticeable damage to mental or physical health, that the positive health effects of coca leaf chewing might be transferable from traditional settings to other countries and cultures, and that coca production provided financial benefits to peasants. He added that his government would suspend financial support if the WHO did not dissociate itself from the study’s conclusions and if it adopted a position justifying coca production […]””[12]. Further to such a pressure, this global study was never published. Johanna Levy states that it was incinerated [1-2].
Unfortunately, as far as harm reduction is concerned, the world has not changed that much since then. Perhaps were we too young, naïve and idealists. In the light of the above, after reading again Dr Small and Dr Drucker’ study on the INCB Inquisition, remembering a Rebetiko song (see further down) and the poem written by my colleague on the occasion of a tragic though not irrelevant event, it is clear that the official position of the INCB has virtually not evolved [4,13]. Thirteen years later, I am certainly less younger and naïve but I do remain as idealist as then.
Kamal Chaouachi
_____________
References:
[1] Levy J. Une petite feuille verte nommée coca [A Small Green Leaf Named Coca]. Le Monde Diplomatique 2008 (May):20-1.
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2008/05/LEVY/15877
[2] Levy J. Atout économique pour la Bolivie [An Economic Asset for Bolivia]. Le Monde Diplomatique 2008 (May):21 (suppl).
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2008/05/LEVY/15878
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2008/05/A/15879 (A Few Landmarks)
[3] INCB (International Narcotics Control Board). Annual Report 2007: page 108.
http://www.incb.org/incb/en/annual-report-2007.html
[4] Small D, Drucker E. Return to Galileo? The inquisition of the international narcotic control board. Harm Reduct J. 2008 May 7;5:16.
http://www.harmreductionjournal.com/content/5/1/16
[5] Sajid KM, Chaouachi K, Mahmood R. Hookah smoking and cancer. Carcinoembryonic Antigen (CEA) levels in exclusive/ever hookah smokers. Harm Reduction Journal 2008 24 May;5(19).
http://www.harmreductionjournal.com/content/5/1/19
[6] PEDDRO (Prevention-EDucation-DROgues). Quarterly Newsletter for the Networking of Information and Experiences in the Field of Prevention of Drug Abuse through Education [English, French, Spanish]. 5 issues under the supervision of Editor in-chief Olivier Ralet. UNESCO, European Commission. 1993-95.
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ulis/cgi-bin/ulis.pl?catno=108099&database=ged&gp=0
[7] Stengers I., Ralet O : Drogues: le défi hollandais [The Drug Question in the Light of the Dutch Challenging Experience]. Paris, Laboratoires Delagrange, 1991.
[8] Mayor F. Address by Mr Federico Mayor, Director-general of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) at the 58th Session of the INCB (United Nations International Narcotics Control Board), Vienna, 9 May 1995
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001008/100858Eb.pdf (particularly pages 3-6)
[9] Mayor F. [quotation]. Exclusion and Poverty: Seedbeds of Violence, The Director-General’s Newsletter, issue 4. Paris, UNESCO, Sept. 1995.
[10] Chaouachi K: Le narguilé. Anthropologie d’un mode d’usage de drogues douces [An Anthropology of Narghile: its Use and Soft Drugs]. Paris : L'Harmattan ; 1997 (263 pages) : pp. 74-5.
http://www.harmattan.fr/index.asp?navig=catalogue&obj=livre&no=10880
[11] Fernández J.A., Declaración del delegado de Cuba, Sr. Juan Antonio Fernández en el tema 98 del Programa: Fizcalización Internacional de Estupefacientes, República de Cuba-Misión permanente ante las Naciones Unidas, Tercera Comisión, 49 Asamblea General, New York, 4 Nov 1994.
[12] Transnational Institute. Cocayes, Cocaine, no ? Legal options for the coca leaf. Drugs and Conflicts 2006 (May); Issue n°13.
http://www.tni.org/reports/drugs/debate13.pdf
[13] Sajid KM. Poem in Punjabi (with English translation): « Dhuein da Tharki » [The Addict of Smoke]
http://www.harmreductionjournal.com/content/5/1/19#IDAHWRTE
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THE DEW (*)
« Yesterday they turned Sideri’s teke upside down
Very early with the dew still on the grass,
While everyone was nicely high,
Two manges staged a rumpus
To do some dirty work.
« Listen, » I said to the proprietor,
« The mangas speaks to you in sorrow.
If I smoke hashish, I don’t bother anyone;
I am a mangas and a bum and I came to the teke
Needing a smoke. »
« I came into the teke to smoke a narghile,
To smoke and blow my mind
And forget the bitterness in all this darkness
I feel fine when I am stoned ». »
A Rebetiko song about a police raid on a teke (tavern), to be found in above mentioned reference 10, together with other Rebetiko songs translated from Greek into English by Lisa Kritikos. Source: Holst G: Road to Rembetika: music of a Greek sub-culture, songs of love, sorrow and hashish. Denise Harvey, Limni, Evia (Greece), 1994.
***********************************
Competing interests
No competing interests. For more details, see: http://www.harmreductionjournal.com/content/5/1/19/comments#304579