Drug policy

International drug control treaties

The first international treaty to control a psychoactive substance was adopted at the Brussels Conference in 1890, concerning alcoholic beverages. The final act of the Shanghai Opium Commission of 1909 attempted to settle peace and arrange opium trade after the Opium Wars. In 1912, the First International Opium Convention was adopted in the Hague and later incorporated into the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Subsequent treaties included the 1925 Agreement concerning the Manufacture of, Internal Trade in and Use of Prepared Opium, the 1931 Convention for Limiting the Manufacture and Regulating the Distribution of Narcotic Drugs, and the 1936 Convention for the Suppression of the Illicit Traffic in Dangerous Drugs.

After World War II, protocols at Lake Success brought these treaties under the United Nations. The 1961 Single Convention superseded nine previous treaties, rationalizing global control on drug trading and use, committing countries to protecting health and welfare and combating substance abuse. This treaty was supplemented by the 1971 Convention and the 1988 Convention, forming the three international drug control treaties. Their implementation has been led by the United States, particularly after the Nixon administration's declaration of war on drugs in 1971 and the creation of the Drug Enforcement Administration in 1973.

Drug policy by country

Australian drug policy is primarily a matter for state and territory criminal law, not federal law, which makes identifying national trends difficult. The federal government does control enforcement at the borders. In October 2016, Australia allowed limited medicinal use of cannabis. Bolivia, like Colombia, joined the ATPA in 1991 and pushed for forced coca eradication through the 1990s and early 2000s.

Until 2004, each Bolivian family could legally grow up to 1600 square meters of coca, enough to earn a monthly minimum wage. In 2005, coca grower leader Evo Morales became president and stopped U.S.-backed anti-drug efforts. He opposed drug decriminalization but valued coca as indigenous heritage and a community pillar due to traditional leaf chewing. Bolivia’s 2009 constitution backed legalizing and industrializing coca products.

That year, Bolivia tried to amend the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs; when that failed, it left the treaty and rejoined with a reservation for natural coca leaf. In the late 1980s, U.S. President Ronald Reagan declared a war on drugs, blaming Colombian cartels for America’s cocaine problem. During the 1990s, Colombia housed the Cali and Medellín cartels. In 1999, President Andrés Pastrana launched Plan Colombia, funding regional anti-cartel efforts and aiming to destroy coca crops.

This prohibitionist approach had controversial human rights effects. Coca acreage fell from 362,000 in 2001 to under 130,000 by 2011, but farmers who grew coca for traditional chewing were left impoverished.