Vienna, the capital of Austria, is the headquarters of the United Nations Office of Drug Control (UNODC), the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) and the Convention on Narcotic Drugs (CND). These are the key organizations that influences global drug policy making. These bodies have collectively been responsible for including cannabis in the 1961 Single Convention Treaty on Narcotic Drugs, the treaty that is cited by most nations as being the primary reason why they cannot legalize cannabis even if they wished to, including the US who most likely put the most pressure for inclusion of cannabis in the list of banned narcotic drugs. Being the headquarters of the UNODC, Vienna sees regular discussions regarding drug policy making. It is where the powers-that-be hear various voices regarding how to make drug usage safe globally, turn a deaf ear to the repeated pleas for cannabis legalization and safe use of other drugs, before probably going back to their hotel rooms and injecting heroin or snorting cocaine. The Global Commission on Drugs reports that 'The Vienna-based member states’ bodies, the CND, and the convention-mandated International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) have been central in promoting the global narrative of “drugs as threat” which has underpinned “war on drugs” policies around the world. The influence of these multilateral bodies is substantial. The CND is the central drug policy-making body within the UN; UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) is the operational agency implementing the mandated role of the UN Secretary-General; and the INCB the semi-judicial body ensuring countries’ compliance with the conventions. However, UN mandates and responses to organized crime cut across the system, with seventy percent or more of UN departments having some mandate or initiative related to organized crime. Despite this, there is no strategic framework or inter-departmental coordination body on organized crime within the UN system as there is, for example, on terrorism.' MJBizDaily reports that 'The INCB’s president, Dr. Viroj Sumyai, noted in the foreword to the report that the conventions allow only for the medical and scientific use of cannabis, noting: “The legalization of the use of cannabis for nonmedical purposes in some countries represents a challenge to the universal implementation of the treaties, a challenge to public health and well-being, particularly among young people, and a challenge to the parties to the treaties.”' Marijuana Moment reports in 2020 that 'While the critical review of marijuana itself has been postponed, the committee’s recommendations for its international scheduling are still expected to go up for a vote in the CND in March. If the committee does decide to recommend that cannabis be removed from international control, that would have wide-ranging implications for the reform efforts around the world. In the U.S., the federal government has routinely cited obligations under international treaties to which it is a party as reasons to continue to ban marijuana and its derivatives. For instance, the Food and Drug Administration said in May that CBD doesn’t meet the criteria for federal scheduling at all, but that international treaties obliged it to recommend rescheduling to Schedule V.' The Organization of American States reports that 'The document was presented during the 62nd session of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, Austria, and concludes that, “to reduce the consequences of the drug problem, especially in our most vulnerable populations, countries must adopt policies that take into account the gender perspective and that are based on a public health approach focused on the well-being of the individual and a clear respect for human rights.”'
Austria is known for its sublime culture, architecture and fine tastes. Being a nation of fine tastes, heroin and cocaine are probably the preferred drugs by the ruling upper classes, with cannabis most likely being considered a drug of the lower classes and crude sections of society. As in most places, people in urban areas believe themselves to be more upper class than those in rural areas. UNODC reports that 'The lack of disaggregated data makes it impossible to obtain a global overview of drug use as distributed between urban and rural areas and to analyse interacting global trends in urbanization and drug markets. From the information available, it seems that drug use is more prevalent in urban areas than in rural areas, in both developed and developing countries, with the exception of some major rural drug-producing areas. Urbanization has also been found to be a general risk factor for drug use; for example, data from school surveys in Colombia and Mexico show the prevalence of use of some drugs being up to 60 per cent higher in urban areas than in rural areas. Data on drug law offences including possession and trafficking of drugs in Germany and Austria confirm the same patterns with main cities showing higher per capita offences than the national average (typically around 50 per cent higher in 2018)'.
Austria borders Germany, the nation that legalized cannabis for adult use in April 2024. Austria was third in the world in the consumption of opioids as pain relievers in 2020 behind Germany and the US. According to the UNODC World Drug Report of 2020, 'At the global level, Germany was the second largest consumer of opioid pain relievers, with an estimated 28,862 S-DDD per million population per day for medical use in 2017, followed by Austria, Belgium and Switzerland.' The high consumption of opioids may have been one of the factors for Germany legalizing cannabis for adult use, even though the official reasons given were to protect the youth and reduce crime. The legalization of cannabis, one of the best pain medicines in the world and the safest, most versatile natural medicine, definitely protects the youth, in terms of keeping them off addictive opioids and being recruited by opium trafficking drug cartels. Cannabis legalization reduces crime, primarily by keeping people off drugs that incite violent crime such as alcohol, cocaine and methamphetamine. The black market for illegal drugs is one of the major sources of crime in society. Within two years of cannabis legalization in Canada, the black market for cannabis had been overtaken by the legal market for the herb. Since Austria appears to have similar problems with opioids as Germany did, and its youth and crime are affected by the same problems of opioids, it is logical that Austria should legalize cannabis for adult use as soon as possible. UNODC reports that 'There are also signs of increasing non-medical use of pharmaceutical opioids in Western and Central Europe, as reflected in the increasing proportion of treatment admissions for the use of those substances in recent years. In 2017, users of pharmaceutical opioids, including misused methadone, buprenorphine, fentanyl, codeine, morphine, tramadol and oxycodone, accounted for 22 per cent of all clients entering drug treatment in the subregion for opioid use disorders (as their primary drug).' UNODC reports 'The largest total quantity of heroin and morphine seized in a region outside Asia is that reported for Europe (22 per cent of the global total in 2018), which is an important market for the consumption of heroin.'
Austria, like most European countries gets its heroin and other opiates from Afghanistan. UNODC reports that 'In line with the dominance of the opium production in Afghanistan, quantities of heroin and morphine seized related to Afghan opiate production accounted for some 84 per cent of the global total in 2018, a slight decrease from 88 per cent in 2017, the year of the bumper harvest in the country. Most of the heroin found in Europe, Central Asia/ Transcaucasia and Africa is derived from opium of Afghan origin, accounting for 100 per cent of all mentions in the responses to the annual report questionnaire by countries in Central Asia/Transcaucasia, 96 per cent in Europe and 87 per cent in Africa over the period 2014–2018.' Austria most likely gets its heroin from Afghanistan through the Balkan route. UNODC reports that 'The world’s single largest heroin trafficking route continues to be the so-called “Balkan route”, along which opiates from Afghanistan are shipped to Iran (Islamic Republic of), Turkey, the Balkan countries and to various destinations in Western and Central Europe. Not counting seizures made in Afghanistan itself, countries along the Balkan route accounted for 58 per cent of the global quantities of heroin and morphine seized in 2018. A further 8 per cent of those global seizures were reported by countries in Western and Central Europe, whose markets are supplied to a great degree by heroin and morphine that is trafficked along the Balkan route'. UNODC reports that 'While the strongest increase in the quantities of heroin and morphine seized in 2017 was reported in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe (the same year as the bumper opium harvest reported in Afghanistan), the strongest increase in 2018 was reported in Western and Central Europe (89 per cent). This suggests that it may take a year from when opium is harvested in Afghanistan until it is manufactured into the heroin that ends up on the streets of Western and Central Europe.' Austria also probably gets its heroin through maritime routes from Iran and Turkey from the source country of Afghanistan. This heroin is most likely trafficked across land from neighbouring Belgium into Austria. UNODC reports that 'In contrast to Western and Central Europe as a whole, which continues to be supplied mainly by heroin trafficked along the Balkan route by land, trafficking to Belgium in 2018 to a large extent (98 per cent) took the form of maritime shipments departing from the Islamic Republic of Iran or Turkey.'
It is not just opioids that are a problem in Austria, it is also the stimulants known as amphetamines or amphetamine type stimulants (ATS). Methamphetamine is possibly the most well-known of these but there is a whole array of them. UNODC reports that 'European wastewater analysis confirms the patterns of use of amphetamines reported in household survey data, which point to an overall prevalence of amphetamine use in Europe that is higher than that of methamphetamine, as methamphetamine use is predominant in only a few countries. Wastewater analyses, conducted in 140 cities in 33 countries across Europe, suggest that the quantity of amphetamine consumed per capita over the period 2011–2019 was 1.7 times larger in 2019. In most of the cities included in the analysis, amphetamine was the most consumed substance of the amphetamines group in 2019 (or the latest year available)'. Cocaine is the stimulant that the rich upper classes of the world want to enhance their image as elites but cocaine is difficult to access due to the limited cultivation of the coca plant restricted to a few countries in the world, mainly South America. Only the celebrities generally have access to abundant cocaine. Most others have to rely on synthetic pharmaceutical substitutes and that is where the amphetamines come in. UNODC reports that 'Globally, an estimated 19 million people were pastyear users of cocaine in 2018, corresponding to 0.4 per cent of the global population aged 15–64. The main cocaine markets continue to be North America and Western and Central Europe, with a prevalence of use of 2.1 per cent and 1.4 per cent, respectively...' With the advent of methamphetamine and the abundance of it and other amphetamines, even the poorest classes in Europe can access and get addicted to these stimulants in place of cocaine.
It appears that Austria will find it difficult to legalize cannabis for adult use, given that it hosts all these global bodies - UNODC, INCB, CND, etc. - who collectively refuse to remove cannabis from the scheduled lists of the 1961 Single Convention Treaty on Narcotic Drugs. Even though cannabis legalization is an urgent need for the people of Austria who reel under addiction to heroin and other opioids, besides amphetamines, the presence of these anti-cannabis bodies in its midst poses a problem. How can a host who wishes to consume cannabis do it when the guests in the house are all against it? The obvious way out would be to go ahead since it is of paramount urgency to protect the health of the people of the nation and to eject the guests if they do not like it. But then what about the possible loss of social status and pride that may come with this move? I guess it is for Austria to decide what is more important. Germany did the right thing for its people, going against the general upper-class mentality of Europe that sees cannabis as low-class and heroin and cocaine as high-class even if it kills them. In December 2020, the UN voted (by a very narrow margin) to remove cannabis from its most restrictive schedule but retained cannabis in its least restrictive schedule based on recommendations by the World Health Organization (WHO) that cannabis was a relatively harmless drug with side effects like producing talkativeness and laughter. This may appear like a significant move by the UN but retaining cannabis in the scheduled lists means that there is no change on the ground for the common man for whom cannabis remains as out of reach as always. Cannabis was the medicine, intoxicant, entheogen and source of livelihood for the poorest communities of the world, that included the working classes and indigenous communities and the homeless, who together comprise the majority of the world's people. By continuing to retain cannabis in the scheduled lists, all these bodies that sit in Vienna and decide who should consume what essentially stated that the status quo must remain where the elites continue to get their heroin, cocaine, amphetamines and also cannabis, while the world's majority can do without all this...So what if there is far less talkativeness and laughter among the world's working classes, indigenous communities and poor...The rich upper classes have their fine tastes and the banquets have been laid out in Vienna for them...
Related articles
Listed below are articles taken from various media related to the above subject. Words in italics are the thoughts of your truly at the time of reading the article.
'At the global level, Germany was the second largest consumer of opioid pain relievers, with an estimated 28,862 S-DDD per million population per day for medical use in 2017, followed by Austria, Belgium and Switzerland. In Germany, the number of pharmaceutical opioids overall and the number of people receiving opioid treatment have increased over the past few decades; in most instances, prescriptions were given for non-chronic cancer pain. A review of scientific literature from Germany published between 1985 and 2016 showed that out of the 12 studies reviewed, 6 studies reported a prevalence for patients with medical use of any opioid for long-term treatment of non-cancer chronic pain ranging from 0.54 to 5.7 per cent, while four studies reported a prevalence for patients with medical use of opioids at 0.057 to 1.39 per cent of the population' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
Legalize the ganja for recreational use world wide...
'The document was presented during the 62nd session of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, Austria, and concludes that, “to reduce the consequences of the drug problem, especially in our most vulnerable populations, countries must adopt policies that take into account the gender perspective and that are based on a public health approach focused on the well-being of the individual and a clear respect for human rights.”'
http://www.oas.org/en/media_center/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-014%2F19
'The Vienna-based member states’ bodies, the CND, and the convention-mandated International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) have been central in promoting the global narrative of “drugs as threat” which has underpinned “war on drugs” policies around the world. The influence of these multilateral bodies is substantial. The CND is the central drug policy-making body within the UN; UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) is the operational agency implementing the mandated role of the UN Secretary-General; and the INCB the semi-judicial body ensuring countries’ compliance with the conventions. However, UN mandates and responses to organized crime cut across the system, with seventy percent or more of UN departments having some mandate or initiative related to organized crime (see figure 4). Despite this, there is no strategic framework or inter-departmental coordination body on organized crime within the UN system as there is, for example, on terrorism.'
https://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/FINAL-EN_2020report_web.pdf
'There are also signs of increasing non-medical use of pharmaceutical opioids in Western and Central Europe, as reflected in the increasing proportion of treatment admissions for the use of those substances in recent years. In 2017, users of pharmaceutical opioids, including misused methadone, buprenorphine, fentanyl, codeine, morphine, tramadol and oxycodone, accounted for 22 per cent of all clients entering drug treatment in the subregion for opioid use disorders (as their primary drug).' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf
'The type and form of amphetamines used vary considerably between regions and subregions. In North America, the non-medical use of pharmaceutical stimulants and methamphetamine is most prevalent; in East and South-East Asia and Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), it is methamphetamine; and in Western and Central Europe and the Near and Middle East, it is amphetamine. In the latter subregion, amphetamine is commonly known as “captagon”. In many countries in South and Central America, especially those that have reported recent survey data, the non-medical use of pharmaceutical stimulants is more common than the use of other amphetamines. The non-medical use of weight loss pills is reportedly more prevalent among women than among men, with pills such as sibutramine hydrochloride monohydrate (sold under the brand names Aderan and Ipomex) and phentermine (sold under the brand names Duromine and Suprenza), along with methylphenidate and amphetamine, reported to be the most commonly misused pharmaceutical stimulants in those subregions' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf
'European wastewater analysis confirms the patterns of use of amphetamines reported in household survey data, which point to an overall prevalence of amphetamine use in Europe that is higher than that of methamphetamine, as methamphetamine use is predominant in only a few countries. Wastewater analyses, conducted in 140 cities in 33 countries across Europe, suggest that the quantity of amphetamine consumed per capita over the period 2011–2019 was 1.7 times larger in 2019. In most of the cities included in the analysis, amphetamine was the most consumed substance of the amphetamines group in 2019 (or the latest year available)' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf
'Globally, an estimated 19 million people were pastyear users of cocaine in 2018, corresponding to 0.4 per cent of the global population aged 15–64. The main cocaine markets continue to be North America and Western and Central Europe, with a prevalence of use of 2.1 per cent and 1.4 per cent, respectively, while the highest prevalence of past-year cocaine use is in Australia and New Zealand, at 2.2 per cent of the population aged 15–64. Cocaine use is also higher than the global average in Central America (0.7 per cent) and South America (1.0 per cent).' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf
'The largest total quantity of heroin and morphine seized in a region outside Asia is that reported for Europe (22 per cent of the global total in 2018), which is an important market for the consumption of heroin. Heroin and morphine seized in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe continued to account for the bulk (66 per cent) of all such quantities seized in Europe in 2018, with most of the heroin and morphine seized in the region continuing to be reported by Turkey (62 per cent), followed by Western and Central Europe (31 per cent) and Eastern Europe (3 per cent) in 2018' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'While the strongest increase in the quantities of heroin and morphine seized in 2017 was reported in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe (the same year as the bumper opium harvest reported in Afghanistan), the strongest increase in 2018 was reported in Western and Central Europe (89 per cent). This suggests that it may take a year from when opium is harvested in Afghanistan until it is manufactured into the heroin that ends up on the streets of Western and Central Europe. There were increases in heroin and morphine seizures in Europe in the countries along the Balkan route in 2018, although most of the increase was due to an increase in the quantities of heroin and morphine seized in Belgium and, to a lesser extent, in France and Italy.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'In contrast to Western and Central Europe as a whole, which continues to be supplied mainly by heroin trafficked along the Balkan route by land, trafficking to Belgium in 2018 to a large extent (98 per cent) took the form of maritime shipments departing from the Islamic Republic of Iran or Turkey. Similarly, trafficking to Italy was characterized by maritime shipments in 2018 (61 per cent of the total quantity seized by customs authorities), with the bulk of seizures in 2018 having departed from the Islamic Republic of Iran in containers, followed by shipments by air (37 per cent), often departing from the Middle East (Qatar) or Africa (South Africa), while heroin shipments destined for France typically transited the Netherlands and Belgium in 2018' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The world’s single largest heroin trafficking route continues to be the so-called “Balkan route”, along which opiates from Afghanistan are shipped to Iran (Islamic Republic of), Turkey, the Balkan countries and to various destinations in Western and Central Europe. Not counting seizures made in Afghanistan itself, countries along the Balkan route accounted for 58 per cent of the global quantities of heroin and morphine seized in 2018. A further 8 per cent of those global seizures were reported by countries in Western and Central Europe, whose markets are supplied to a great degree by heroin and morphine that is trafficked along the Balkan route' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'In line with the dominance of the opium production in Afghanistan, quantities of heroin and morphine seized related to Afghan opiate production accounted for some 84 per cent of the global total in 2018, a slight decrease from 88 per cent in 2017, the year of the bumper harvest in the country. Most of the heroin found in Europe, Central Asia/ Transcaucasia and Africa is derived from opium of Afghan origin, accounting for 100 per cent of all mentions in the responses to the annual report questionnaire by countries in Central Asia/Transcaucasia, 96 per cent in Europe and 87 per cent in Africa over the period 2014–2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The lack of disaggregated data makes it impossible to obtain a global overview of drug use as distributed between urban and rural areas and to analyse interacting global trends in urbanization and drug markets. From the information available, it seems that drug use is more prevalent in urban areas than in rural areas, in both developed and developing countries, with the exception of some major rural drug-producing areas. Urbanization has also been found to be a general risk factor for drug use; for example, data from school surveys in Colombia and Mexico show the prevalence of use of some drugs being up to 60 per cent higher in urban areas than in rural areas. Data on drug law offences including possession and trafficking of drugs in Germany and Austria confirm the same patterns with main cities showing higher per capita offences than the national average (typically around 50 per cent higher in 2018)'- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'However, polydrug trafficking is not limited to Europe and can also be found in other regions and subregions, including North America, South America, Asia, Oceania and Africa. For a number of years, for example, polydrug trafficking organizations have been dismantled in the United States. A recent example was the dismantlement in July 2019 of an organization involving more than 50 people selling counterfeit oxycodone pills (containing fentanyl), methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and benzodiazepine pills, as well as various types of weapons.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
The rot runs deep but the walls will fall...
'While the critical review of marijuana itself has been postponed, the committee’s recommendations for its international scheduling are still expected to go up for a vote in the CND in March. If the committee does decide to recommend that cannabis be removed from international control, that would have wide-ranging implications for the reform efforts around the world.
In the U.S., the federal government has routinely cited obligations under international treaties to which it is a party as reasons to continue to ban marijuana and its derivatives. For instance, the Food and Drug Administration said in May that CBD doesn’t meet the criteria for federal scheduling at all, but that international treaties obliged it to recommend rescheduling to Schedule V.'
Overzealous bureaucrats standing against positive change come what may and insisting on implementing outdated and backward policies which have been rejected by the creators of the policies themselves. Like soldiers who don't want to leave the battlefield even though the war is over and the death count has been devastating on all sides..
'The INCB’s president, Dr. Viroj Sumyai, noted in the foreword to the report that the conventions allow only for the medical and scientific use of cannabis, noting:
“The legalization of the use of cannabis for nonmedical purposes in some countries represents a challenge to the universal implementation of the treaties, a challenge to public health and well-being, particularly among young people, and a challenge to the parties to the treaties.”'
https://mjbizdaily.com/incb-medical-cannabis-violate-treaties/
'@CND_tweets unanimously adopts procedural decision to postpone the consideration of @WHO cannabis-related recommendations, to provide MS with more time to consider the recommendations @UNODC @UN_Vienna #CND2019 #CND62'
https://twitter.com/CND_tweets/status/1107957581673385985
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