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Drug abuse: Tendencies and ways to overcome it (стр. 1 из 13)

CONTENTS:

Number: Pages:

1. Introduction 2-4

Chapter 1. Concept, Manifestations and Tendencies of

Drug Abuse 4-14

2. The Concept and Manifestation of Drug Abuse 4-11

3. Tendencies of Development 11-14

Chapter II. System and Classification of Measures to Overcome

Drug Abuse 14-22

4. System of Measures to Overcome Drug Abuse 14-17

5. Classification of Measures to Overcome Drug Abuse 17-22

Chapter III. Drug Abuse in the International Law 22-38

6. International Fora and Legal Acts on Drugs 22-34

7. Tendencies in the World Community's Reaction to Drug Abuse. 34-37

Chapter IV. Measures to Suppress and Prevent Drug Abuse 37-40

Chapter V. Organized Measures to Counteract Narcotics 40-57

8. General Provisions for Counteracting Narcotics 41-45

9. Organization of Medical Counteraction to Narcotics 45-49

10. Enforcement of Legal Measures of Narcotics Counteraction 50-53

11. Other Organizational Measures to Combat Narcotics 53-57

12. Conclusion 57-58

Introduction

The 20th century has witnessed the spread of narcotics to the entire world. In the past narcotics in the natural economy were confined to territories where drug-bearing plants were grown. By the end of century drug addiction has become a worldwide socially dangerous trend.

Narco-dealers making fabulous profits infect more and more people and even entire social groups with drug addiction. Narcotics have long since gone beyond the borders of traditional drug-producing areas and have infiltrated all the countries of the world, exerting its malicious effect on their peoples. It has affected social, economic, political and biological aspects of life.

Statistics is constantly reporting the spread of drug addiction and the growth in the number of drug addicts on file at medical institutions, as well as the rise in officially recorded drug-related crimes.

Drug abuse has become a real plague of the 20th century in many countries of the world and may become the plague of this country in particular.

The pleasurable sensations of comfort and satisfaction that a person experiences using narcotics is much greater than that of alcohol thus making the repetition necessary. Consequently, dependence on drugs and the desire to enlarge the dose or experiment with the new and more powerful drugs increases. Gradually the desire for dope becomes so overwhelming that it degrades the addict's individuality. The transition from experimentation to dependence is no longer a secret for it has been studied thoroughly. Profit seeking dealers expand the drug market at any cost by supplying drugs to more and more addicts taking advantage of their weaknesses.

Drug sales are the closing stage in drug trafficking. Drug trade earns huge profits that cover the costs of cultivating drug-bearing plants, producing (or illegally acquiring from medical institutions) transportation, sale expenses, and the bribery of officials, including those of the law enforcement agencies. Since illegal drug trafficking is extremely advantageous in terms of illegal profit accumulation and so harmful and immoral it must be regarded by the entire world community as a socially dangerous phenomenon. Some countries qualify its certain manifestations as a heinous crime.

Throughout this century international organizations have been paying much attention to actions against drug abuse. For example, in 1909 the Shanghai Opium Commission approved documents to restrict drug trafficking between countries. The international opium conference held in the Hague between 1911 and 1912 worked out, for the first time in history, the drug convention of 1912. The conference on opium held in Geneva between 1924 and 1925 approved, on February 11, 1925, an Agreement under which opium was made a government monopoly. The second Geneva conference on opium passed a convention on February 19, 1925, under which narcotics were to be produced only for the purpose of meeting the countries' legal demand for them. Besides this convention stipulated the extension of the list of drugs. On July 13, 1931, an international convention limiting the production of drugs and regulating their distribution was approved in Geneva. It came into force in 1933. A convention of actions against the illegal trade in hard drugs was signed in Geneva on June 26, 1936. It made international prosecution for drug-related crimes possible and introduced punishments for such crimes compared with the previous conventions.

In 1946, the UN Economic and Social Council passed a resolution that provided for the international drug control and for the establishment of a drug commission for this purpose. On November, 19 1946, the UN General Assembly passed resolution 54/1 which endorsed a Protocol on Drugs. It was signed at Lake Success on December 11, 1946. At the initiative of the Drug Commission, a protocol extending the international control over drugs set forth by the 1931 convention, was signed at the third UN General Assembly session in Paris on November 19, 1948. A Protocol on Control over opium poppy, consisting of the Preamble and the Final Act, was signed in New York at the UN opium conference on June 23, 1953. The UN conference in New York in 1961 approved a Uniform Drug Convention and in 1971 in Vienna a special diplomatic conference passed a convention that stipulated the establishment of a control over psychotropic preparations. The UN conference in Vienna in 1988 adopted a convention of actions against the illegal trafficking of drugs and psychotropic substances. In keeping with the decisions of the G Seven heads of state and governments and of the European Commission Chairman, the 15th top-level economic summit in Paris set up a special group in July 1989 to deal with the laundering of drug money. Upon this group's recommendations, the International Drug Control Council called on all the governments to approve, among other things, legislative acts against attempts to launder money obtained from drug sales and to ensure their effective use. The list of international antidrug conferences and their drug-prevention documents alone, as well as the establishment of special international bodies and organizations to carry out their decisions, is a graphic illustration of how serious the world community's effort to oppose drug abuse has been.

A lot of people today are drawn into the process of illegal drug trafficking: from those engaged in cultivating drugs or producing medical preparations containing drugs, to drug salesmen and dealers engaged in money-laundering. At times these people form groups, which are termed, organized criminal groups or associations by the criminal code. On the one hand, these groups take control of drug-related crimes and draw people who commit such crimes on their own. And on the other hand, they establish firm organizational ties among themselves forming drug cartels in order to monopolize drug trafficking in the vast regions of the world. This shows that there is a continuous blending process between narcotics and organized crime. These factors characterize the highest degree of danger that narcotics represent. They prove the pressing need to increase worldwide action against narcotics. This action calls for the use of all possible means: political, legal, economic, and medical among others.

The antidrug campaign is a big drain on the material resources of the country. It involves large spending on various programs such as preventive Medicare, law-enforcement, legal and economic measures, and other. If this spending is to be rational and effective, a range of measures should be outlined with the utmost precision and professionally implemented.

All this calls for a comprehensive analysis of the existing situation and of the possible opposition by drug dealers. As the owners of enormous wealth, which sometimes exceeds the budgets of some countries, drug dealers are able to influence government policies, especially in small countries. Mainly bribing top government officials in the legislative or the executive branches ensures this influence. As a result, criminals get a chance to interfere in law making from the outset. The bribery of the law enforcement officers and of the officers of the court, among others, makes it possible to cover up drug deals, prevent exposed members of the criminal associations involved in these deals from prosecution or substantially curtail their prison terms.

Unlike the United States and other wealthy countries, smaller nations are in no position to allocate sufficient sums from their budgets to carry out effective antidrug projects. Research-based guidance may to a certain extent make up for the lack of necessary funding. And here government-supported antidrug programs may play an essential role.

The study of drug abuse has always been prominent in the study of law. Many booklets, articles, serious textbooks, and monographs are devoted to narcotics. It is as hard to cover all aspects of the problem, even in the most profound study, as it is to establish absolute truth, especially, since reality keeps creating new problems all the time.

The key solution lies in the need to pool international efforts in eradicating drug addiction and narco-business. In the present-day world with its integration processes it is impossible to do away with drug addiction in any one country. Yet there is no way for the world community to regard itself free from the problem even at a time when drugs will be a peril only in one particular country. An intensive and continuous buildup of the world community's joint effort against narcotics is a top priority objective of the world at large.

Chapter 1. Concept, Manifestations and Tendencies of Drug Abuse

1. The Concept and Manifestation of Drug Abuse

Sociologists, lawyers and medical experts single out three basic aspects of drug abuse: social, legal and medical.

These aspects are interconnected and interdependent and reveal the diverse nature of drug abuse. Moreover one can also point out the criminological, economic and ecological aspects.

To highlight the entire multiplicity of this phenomenon, it is necessary to go beyond the widespread notion of "drug addiction" because strictly speaking it applies only to the medical or biological aspects of drug use being viewed exclusively as a disease without covering social, legal and some other aspects. This is why the notion "drug abuse" rather than "drug addiction" is used in juridical literature as a much wider term covering social, legal and other aspects. So, drug abuse is understood as a "social phenomenon" which combines such illegal actions as willful consumption of narcotics, dealing in narcotics illegally, as well as solicitation to use drugs, creating the conditions for becoming a part of illegal drug trafficking.

This definition is acceptable on the whole and may be used as a basis for describing the phenomenon, yet it fails to cover the biological aspect and insufficiently expresses the economic, legal and criminological aspects.

There is a need for a term that would cover all the aspects of this negative phenomenon, and of the ways of combating it.

Social Aspects of Drug Abuse:

Most concisely, the social aspect of drug abuse can be described as a combination of social behaviors linked to narcotics and their social consequences in the form of damage that has been done and can be done to society.

The actual negative social manifestations of drug abuse are expressed in various drug-related actions: cultivation of drug bearing plants, preparation, acquisition, storage, sale and consumption of narcotics, as well as persuasion to use narcotics.

Negative Social Consequences of Drug Abuse:

The negative social consequences of drug abuse are similar to the social consequences of crime. They amount to "real harm caused by crime to social relationships and expressed in the cause-and-effect combination of criminal behavior and in the direct and indirect, immediate and mediate negative changes (damage, losses, and other ill effects), ultimately affecting the social (economic, moral, legal, etc.) Values and also implying the combination of society's economic and other social hazards attributed to the effort to combat and to socially prevent crime.

Proceeding from this definition it is possible to recognize the negative social consequences of drug abuse. The first is the negative social changes, such as harm to people's health, the destruction of family foundations, and a decline in work efficiency. The second is the cost which society has to pay to overcome these changes. Other changes also include refusal to work, various antisocial actions, and crime. A closer look at these negative changes shows that drug addicts are poor workers because of their ill health, which, in general, makes work impossible for them during spells of abstinence. Their entire range of interests and thoughts lies in the desire to find ways of obtaining drugs. The list of negative changes also includes material damage perpetrated by the drug addicts who are often the source of transportation accidents and accidents in industry. For example, 60 billion dollars worth of damage is done annually in the United States alone. There is also the moral damage resulting from the various unlawful actions motivated by the desire to find means for buying drugs, such as the willingness to commit crime for the sake of meeting that desire. Forgery, embezzlement, abuse of authority and office duties is just a few. Drug addicts create unbearable conditions for their families by denying them normal lifestyles and means of existence. They harm their offspring by upsetting the hereditary stock. Drug addicts undergo physical and moral degradation and die early. They destroy their own basic moral and ethical values.

The Committee of Experts of the World Health Organization determines the social danger and negative consequences of drug abuse according to the basic factors and divides them into two main groups: the breach of relations among drug consumers and the spread of unfavorable consequences among many people.

Specific Social Problems of Drug Abuse:

WHO experts describe the specific social problems caused by drug abuse as follows: the huge material losses and their consequences in the form of all kinds of damage done to those who immediately surround drug consumers (parents, college roommates and so on) and to the society as a whole; the deterioration of relations with official organizations and institutions, staff at college and at work etc.; drug consumers' inclination to commit crimes motivated by the need to have drugs or the means to buy them, and also the mercenary and violent crimes committed under the influence of drugs; the additional demand for welfare benefits and medical care for persons using drugs other than for medicinal purposes and in connection with this the unnoticed spending both by drug addicts and by society as a whole; the danger arising from drug addicts as potential conduct of drug addiction in their immediate surroundings.

Detailed research however allows for a broader list of specific social aspects. They include: ideological and cultural, law enforcement, medical care and preventative medicine, labor and education, family and leisure time, and material resources. The specific ill effects of narcotics and their unfavorable social consequences can be seen in any of the categories listed above. For example, in the ideological and cultural area they express themselves in the development of a specific drug ideology; in the law enforcement area there is an increase of crime. In Medicare and preventive medicine, there is deterioration in people's health and an increase in the number of handicapped children. In industry and education - a decline in labor efficiency and poor results at schools and other educational centers is evident. One can also point to accidents and to deterioration of relations among staff. In the family relations, a loss of understanding occurs. All this requires setting up special schools, preventive centers, drug departments at medical institutions, rehabilitation centers and new antidrug programs.

To sum up the above-cited social aspects of drug abuse one may state, that it is harmful in physical, moral and proprietary ways. This harm is caused by the proliferation of the narcotic sub-culture as it draws more victims into it; secondly, by drug-related crimes; thirdly, by crimes committed for the purpose of getting means for buying more drugs; fourthly, by crimes committed under the influence of drugs; and, finally, by the spending needed to carry out various programs aimed at eliminating drug abuse.

Legal Aspect of Drug Abuse:

The legal aspect of drug abuse is also a part of the social aspect. Crimes and other law-breaking acts covered by the totality of legal norms involve the illegal cultivation of drug-bearing plants, the preparation, storage, transportation, trafficking, sales, and theft of drugs, the use of drugs without doctor's prescription, and the violation of laws regulating the handling of narcotics. This also covers the situation when suitable conditions are created for taking drugs and those in which more people are persuaded to use drugs or when people have to commit crimes in order to obtain means to buy drugs. Crimes committed under the influence of drugs, as well as crimes that are committed for the purpose of getting money to purchase drugs are included as well.