This book explores how international drug control law should be interpreted within the context of international human rights law.

In Child Rights and Drug Control on International Law, Damon Barrett explores the meaning of the child’s right to protection from drugs under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the relationship between this right and the UN drug control conventions

Controlled essential medicines are medicines included in the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, and whose active substance is listed under the international drug-control treaties. Their availability and accessibility therefore fall within the remit of both human rights and international drug-control law. Human Rights and Drug Control analyzes a human rights interpretation of the international drug-control framework, with an emphasis on advancing the access to controlled essential medicines in resource-constrained countries. It first aims to identify a human rights foundation of drug control by examining how human rights norms would balance the underlying tension: some controlled substances have a clear, evidence-based medical benefit, yet also have the potential to be misused, which may lead to dependency disorders. Having explored this premise in the context of human rights law and theory, this book then applies these findings to Uganda and Latvia-two 'best practice' countries-when it comes to improving the accessibility of morphine for pain treatment. Relying on qualitative research methods, the study explores whether the human rights basis of drug-control regulation may be adequately integrated into the structures of the present international drug-control system. It specifically deals with various technical, administrative, and procedural obligations relating to the import/export and retail trade of controlled medicines. The book concludes with a proposal on how a human rights approach to drug-control may be advanced, specifically highlighting the importance of reconciling international obligations with the local reality in which these obligations come into play. Dissertation. (Series: School of Human Rights Research, Vol. 80) Subject: Human Rights Law, Medical Law, International Law]

This book provides for an extensive legal analysis of the international drug control system in light of the growing challenges and criticism that this system faces. In the current debate on global drug policy, the central pillars of the international drug control system – the UN Drug Conventions as well as its institutions – are portrayed as outdated, suppressive and seen as an obstacle to necessary changes. The book’s objective is to provide an in-depth and positivist insight into drug control’s present legal framework and thus provide for a better understanding of the normative assumptions upon which drug control is currently based. This is attained by clarifying the objectives of the international drug control system and the premises by which these objectives are to be achieved. The objective of the current global framework of international drug control is the limitation of drugs to medical and scientific purposes. The meaning of this objective and its concrete implications for States’ parties as well as its problems from the perspective of other regimes of international law, most notably international human rights law, are extensively analysed. Additionally, the book focuses on how the international drug control system attempts to reach the objective of confining drugs to medical and scientific purposes, i.e. by setting up a universal system that exercises a rigid control on drug supply. The consequences of this heavy focus on the reduction of drug supply are outlined, and the book concludes by making suggestions on how the international drug control system could be reformed in the near future in order to better meet the existing challenges. The analysis occurs from a general international law perspective. It aims to map the international drug control system within a wider context of international law and to understand whether the problems that the international drug control system faces are exemplary for the difficulties that institutionalized systems of global scope face in the twenty-first century.

Analysing arguably one of the most controversial areas in public policy, this pioneering Research Handbook brings together contributions from expert researchers to provide a global overview of the shifting dynamics of drug policy. Emphasising connections between the domestic and the international, contributors illustrate the intersections between drug policy, human rights obligations and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, offering an insightful analysis of the regional dynamics of drug control and the contemporary and emerging problems it is facing.

While there have always been norms and customs around the use of drugs, explicit public policies--regulations, taxes, and prohibitions--designed to control drug abuse are a more recent phenomenon. Those policies sometimes have terrible side-effects: most prominently the development of criminal enterprises dealing in forbidden (or untaxed) drugs and the use of the profits of drug-dealing to finance insurgency and terrorism. Neither a drug-free world nor a world of free drugs seems to be on offer, leaving citizens and officials to face the age-old problem: What are we going to do about drugs? In Drugs and Drug Policy, three noted authorities survey the subject with exceptional clarity, in this addition to the acclaimed series, What Everyone Needs to Know®. They begin, by defining "drugs," examining how they work in the brain, discussing the nature of addiction, and exploring the damage they do to users. The book moves on to policy, answering questions about legalization, the role of criminal prohibitions, and the relative legal tolerance for alcohol and tobacco. The authors then dissect the illicit trade, from street dealers to the flow of money to the effect of catching kingpins, and show the precise nature of the relationship between drugs and crime. They examine treatment, both its effectiveness and the role of public policy, and discuss the beneficial effects of some abusable substances. Finally they move outward to look at the role of drugs in our foreign policy, their relationship to terrorism, and the ugly politics that surround the issue. Crisp, clear, and comprehensive, this is a handy and up-to-date overview of one of the most pressing topics in today's world. What Everyone Needs to Know® is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access and freely available to read online. Examining the impact of drug criminalisation on a previously overlooked demographic, this book argues that women are disproportionately affected by a flawed policy approach.