Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs

The Single Convention as amended in 1972 had been ratified or acceded to by 186 states. Only Chad remained party to the original 1961 Convention in its unamended form. The Cook Islands, Equatorial Guinea, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, South Sudan, Timor-Leste, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu are not parties. Since the Single Convention is not self-executing, parties must enact legislation to carry out its provisions, and the UNODC works with countries' legislatures to ensure compliance. ==History==

The League of Nations adopted several drug control treaties prior to World War II, such as the First and Second International Opium Convention, and International Convention relating to Dangerous Drugs (1925) specifying uniform controls on addictive drugs such as cocaine and opium, and its derivatives. However, the lists of controlled substances were fixed in the treaties' text. Consequently, it was necessary to periodically amend or supersede the conventions with the introduction of new treaties to keep up with advances in chemistry. According to a 1954 interview with United States Commissioner of Narcotics Harry J. Anslinger, the cumbersome process of conference and state-by-state ratification could take many decades. -producing Parties are required to "purchase and take physical possession of such crops as soon as possible" after harvest to prevent diversion into the illicit market. A Senate of Canada committee reported: "The work of consolidating the existing international drug control treaties into one instrument began in 1948, but it was 1961 before an acceptable third draft was ready." That year, the UN Economic and Social Council convened a plenipotentiary conference of 73 nations for the adoption of a single convention on narcotic drugs. That meeting was known as the United Nations Conference on Narcotic Drugs. The participating states organized themselves into five distinct caucuses: The Single Convention created four Schedules of controlled substances and a process for adding new substances to the Schedules without amending the treaty. The Schedules were designed to have significantly stricter regulations than the two drug "Groups" established by predecessor treaties. For the first time, cannabis was added to the list of internationally controlled drugs. In fact, regulations on the cannabis plant – as well as the opium poppy, the coca bush, poppy straw and cannabis tops – were embedded in the text of the treaty, making it impossible to deregulate them through the normal Scheduling process. A 1962 issue of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs' Bulletin on Narcotics proudly announced that "after a definite transitional period, all non-medical use of narcotic drugs, such as opium smoking, opium eating, consumption of cannabis (hashish, marijuana) and chewing of coca leaves, will be outlawed everywhere. This is a goal which workers in international narcotics control all over the world have striven to achieve for half a century." The legal commentary was written by the United Nations Secretary-General staff member Adolf Lande, the former Secretary of the Permanent Central Narcotics Board and Drug Supervisory Body, operating under a mandate to give "an interpretation of the provisions of the Convention in the light of the relevant conference proceedings and other material." The Commentary contains the Single Convention's legislative history and can be a valuable aid to interpreting the treaty, when used alongside contemporaneous sources such as the Official Records. . The Single Convention entered into force on 13 December 1964, having met Article 41's requirement of 40 ratifications. As of 1 January 2005, 180 states were Parties to the treaty. Others, such as Cambodia, have committed to becoming Parties. On 21 May 1971, the UN Economic and Social Council called a conference of plenipotentiaries to consider amendments to the Single Convention. The conference met at the United Nations Office at Geneva from 6 to 24 March 1972, producing the 1972 Protocol Amending the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. The amendments entered into force on 8 August 1975. On 11 November 1990, mechanisms for enforcing the Single Convention were expanded significantly by the entry into force of the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, which had been signed at Vienna on 20 December 1988. The Preamble to this treaty acknowledges the inadequacy of the Single Convention's controls to stop "steadily increasing inroads into various social groups made by illicit traffic in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances". The new treaty focuses on stopping organized crime by providing for international cooperation in apprehending and convicting gangsters and starving them of funds through forfeiture, asset freezing, and other methods. It also establishes a system for placing precursors to Scheduled drugs under international control. Some non-Parties to the Single Convention, such as Andorra, belong to this treaty and thus are still under the international drug control regime. == Provisions ==

Purposes Medical and scientific purposes The Single Convention repeatedly affirms the importance of medical use of controlled substances. The Preamble notes that "the medical use of narcotic drugs continues to be indispensable for the relief of pain and suffering and that adequate provision must be made to ensure the availability of narcotic drugs for such purposes". Articles 1, 2, 4, 9, 12, 19, and 49 contain provisions relating to "medical and scientific" use of controlled substances. In almost all cases, parties are permitted to allow dispensation and use of controlled substances under a prescription, subject to record-keeping requirements and other restrictions. The Single Convention unambiguously condemns "abuse of drugs", even stating that "addiction to narcotic drugs constitutes a serious evil for the individual and is fraught with social and economic danger to mankind". It aims to limit the global production of controlled drugs to an amount adequate to satisfy the estimated global demand for medical and scientific purposes without producing a surplus that could lead to diversion and addiction. Article 4 requires nations to take legislative and administrative measures necessary to limit production, trade, use and possession of drugs to medical and scientific purposes. Article 49 allowed countries to temporarily permit coca leaf chewing, opium smoking, and other traditional drug uses at the time of signature, ratification, or accession, but provides that countries opting to do so would be required to phase out these and other traditional uses by specific dates after the convention came into force. As of 2025, 138 substances are controlled under the Single Convention. Non-medical and non-scientific purposes The Single Convention contains specific exemptions for drugs used for non-medical and non-scientific purposes. The most broad of these is Article 2(9), which permits a country to unilaterally exempt a drug that is commonly used in industry from nearly all control requirements of the convention, provided that the country ensures by appropriate means that the drug is not liable to be abused or have ill effects, and that the country include the quantity of the drug exempted under this article in its annual statistical submissions. Other non-medical purposes that convention does not require the Parties to prohibit include the manufacture of substances not covered by the convention, the use of coca leaf as a flavoring agent, and the cultivation of the cannabis plant for industrial purposes. Some analysts suggest the "recreational use" of drugs is part of the "other than medical and scientific purposes," and therefore exempt from the measure of control of the convention, which are limited to "medical and scientific purposes;" Malta seem to have followed article 2 paragraph 9 of the Single Convention, which allows to regulate the use of drugs, other than medical and scientific, in the context of industry. Penal provisions As scholars note: "although formally binding, the penal provisions prove remarkably soft" and, as explained in the Commentary on the Single Convention, they are "rather vague, and [admit] escape clauses for the benefit of those Governments to which even such vague norms would be unacceptable." Article 36 requires Parties to adopt measures against "cultivation, production, manufacture, extraction, preparation, possession, offering, offering for sale, distribution, purchase, sale, delivery on any terms whatsoever, brokerage, dispatch, dispatch in transit, transport, importation and exportation of drugs contrary to the provisions of this Convention," as well as "[i]ntentional participation in, conspiracy to commit and attempts to commit, any of such offences, and preparatory acts and financial operations in connexion with the offences referred to in this article", but it does not directly require criminalization of all the above; it states only in the cases of (unspecified) serious offences that they "shall be liable to adequate punishment particularly by imprisonment or other penalties of deprivation of liberty." The Article also provides for extradition of drug offenders, although a Party has a right to refuse to extradite a suspect if "competent authorities consider that the offense is not sufficiently serious." A 1972 amendment to the Article grants nations the discretion to substitute "treatment, education, after-care, rehabilitation and social reintegration" for criminal penalties if the offender is a drug abuser. The Single Convention requires Parties to enact criminal laws for illicit drug-related activities, but does not clearly mandate their uniform enforcement. Drug enforcement varies widely between nations. Many European countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, and, most famously, the Netherlands, do not prosecute all petty drug offenses. Dutch coffee shops are allowed to sell small amounts of cannabis to consumers. However, the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport's report, Drugs Policy in the Netherlands, notes that large-scale "[p]roduction and trafficking are dealt with severely under the criminal law, in accordance with the UN Single Convention. Each year the Public Prosecutions Department deals with an average of 10,000 cases involving infringements of the Opium Act." Some of the most severe penalties for drug trafficking are handed down in certain Asian countries, such as Malaysia, which mandate capital punishment for offenses involving amounts over a certain threshold. Singapore mandates the death penalty for trafficking in 15 g (half an ounce) of heroin, 30 g of cocaine or 500 g of cannabis. Most nations, such as France and the United States, find a middle ground, imposing a spectrum of sanctions ranging from probation to life imprisonment for drug offenses. The Single Convention's penal provisions frequently begin with clauses such as "Subject to its constitutional limitations, each Party shall..." Thus, if a nation's constitution prohibited instituting the criminal penalties called for by the Single Convention, those provisions would not be binding on that country. Possession for personal use It is unclear whether or not the treaty requires criminalization of drug possession for personal use. The treaty's language is ambiguous, and a ruling by the International Court of Justice would probably be required to settle the matter decisively. However, several commissions have attempted to tackle the question. With the exception of the Le Dain Commission, most have found that states are allowed to legalize possession for personal use. The Canadian Le Dain Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs' 1972 report cites circumstantial evidence suggesting that states must prohibit possession for personal use: However, LeDain himself concludes The Canadian Department of National Health and Welfare's 1979 report, The Single Convention and Its Implications for Canadian Cannabis Policy, counters with circumstantial evidence to the contrary: The Sackville Commission of South Australia concluded in 1978 that: The American Shafer Commission reached a similar conclusion in 1972, finding "that the word 'possession' in Article 36 refers not to possession for personal use but to Possession as a link in illicit trafficking." The Canadian Department of National Health and Welfare report cites the Commentary itself in backing up its interpretation: Regulation of cannabis and hemp cultivation The Single Convention places generally the same restrictions on cannabis cultivation that it does on opium cultivation, although there are cannabis-specific dispositions. Similarly, in 2000, Prairie Plant Systems was awarded a five-year contract to grow cannabis in the Flin Flon mine for Health Canada, that nation's licit cannabis cultivation authority. Article 28 specifically excludes the cultivation of industrial hemp from these regulations, stating:"This Convention shall not apply to the cultivation of the cannabis plant exclusively for industrial purposes (fibre and seed) or horticultural purposes."In addition, article 2(9) permits countries to exempt the cannabis tops and resin obtained from hemp grown for industrial purposes from many provisions of the convention. Once on a path to reduction, there are now an increasing number of countries worldwide which are returning to hemp cultivation, often a traditional crop in various regions of the world, according to a report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. ==Drugs and preparations under control==

The treaty updated the Paris Convention of 13 July 1931, to include the vast number of synthetic opioids invented in the intervening 30 years and to add a mechanism for more easily including new ones. From 1931 to 1961, most of the families of synthetic opioids had been developed, including drugs related to methadone, pethidine (meperidine/Demerol), morphinans, and dextromoramide (Palfium, Palphium, Jetrium, Dimorlin, marketed solely in the Netherlands). Research on fentanyls and piritramide (R-3365, Pirium, Dipidolor, Piridolan, among others) was also nearing fruition at that point. Earlier treaties had only controlled opium, coca, and derivatives such as morphine, heroin, and cocaine. The Single Convention, adopted in 1961, consolidated those treaties and broadened their scope to include cannabis and other substances with effects similar to drugs already covered. The Commission on Narcotic Drugs and the World Health Organization were empowered to add, remove, and transfer drugs among the treaty's four schedules of controlled substances. The International Narcotics Control Board was put in overall control of drug production, international trade, and dispensation. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) was delegated the Board's daily monitoring of each country and working with national authorities to ensure compliance with the Single Convention. This treaty has since been supplemented by the Convention on Psychotropic Substances, which controls LSD, MDMA, and other psychoactive pharmaceuticals, and the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, which strengthens provisions against money laundering and other drug-related offenses. Schedules The Single Convention's Schedules of drugs range from most restrictive to least restrictive, in this order: Schedule IV, Schedule I, Schedule II, Schedule III. The list of drugs initially controlled was annexed to the treaty. Article 3 states that for a drug to be placed in a Schedule, the World Health Organization must make the findings required for that Schedule, to wit: • Schedule I – The substance is liable to similar abuse and productive of similar ill effects as the drugs already in Schedule I or Schedule II, or is convertible into a drug. • Schedule II – The substance is liable to similar abuse and productive of similar ill effects as the drugs already in Schedule I or Schedule II, or is convertible into a drug. • Schedule III – The preparation, because of the substances which it contains, is not liable to abuse and cannot produce ill effects; and the drug therein is not readily recoverable. • Schedule IV – The drug, which is already in Schedule I, is particularly liable to abuse and to produce ill effects, and such liability is not offset by substantial therapeutic advantages. Schedule I According to the Commentary, is the category of drugs whose control provisions "constitute the standard regime under the Single Convention." Limitation of scope The Single Convention allows only drugs with morphine-like, cocaine-like, and cannabis-like effects to be added to the Schedules. The strength of the drug is not relevant; only the similarity of its effects to the substances already controlled. For instance, etorphine and acetorphine were considered sufficiently morphine-like to fall under the treaty's scope, although they are many times more potent than morphine. However, according to the Commentary: Since cannabis is a hallucinogen (although some dispute this), the Commentary speculates that mescaline, psilocybin, tetrahydrocannabinol, and LSD could have been considered sufficiently cannabis-like to be regulated under the Single Convention; however, it opines, "It appears that the fact that the potent hallucinogenics whose abuse has spread in recent years have not been brought under international narcotics control does not result from legal reasons, but rather from the view of Governments that a regime different from that offered by the Single Convention would be more adequate." That different regime was instituted by the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances. The Convention on Psychotropic Drugs' scope can include any drug not already under international control if the World Health Organization finds that: • The substance has the capacity to produce "[a] state of dependence" AND "[c]entral nervous system stimulation or depression, resulting in hallucinations or disturbances in motor function or thinking or behaviour or perception or mood"; or • The substance has the capacity to produce similar abuse and similar ill effects as LSD or one of the other controlled substances enumerated in Convention; or • There is sufficient evidence that the substance is being or is likely to be abused so as to constitute a public health and social problem warranting the placing of the substance under international control. The reason for sharply limiting the scope of Single Convention to a few types of drugs while letting the Convention on Psychotropic Drugs cover the rest was concern for the interests of industry. Professor Cindy Fazey's The Mechanics and Dynamics of the UN System for International Drug Control explains, "concerted efforts by drug manufacturing nations and the pharmaceutical industry ensured that the controls on psychotropics in the 1971 treaty were considerably looser than those applied to organic drugs in the Single Convention." A failed 24 March 2003 European Parliament committee report noted the disparity in how drugs are regulated under the two treaties: For this reason, the European Parliament, Transnational Radical Party, and other organizations have proposed removing cannabis and other drugs from the Single Convention and scheduling them under the Convention on Psychotropic Substances. Rescheduling of cannabis There has long been a controversy over whether cannabis is "particularly liable to abuse and to produce ill effects" and whether that "liability is not offset by substantial therapeutic advantages", as required by Schedule IV criteria. Already in 1973, the Commentary on the Single Convention edited by UN Secretary-General pointed out that "should the results of the intensive research which is at the time of this writing being undertaken on the effects of [cannabis and cannabis resin] so warrant, they could be deleted from Schedule IV, and these two drugs, as well as extracts and tinctures of cannabis, could be transferred from Schedule I to Schedule II." Since the discovery of the endocannabinoid receptor system in the late 1980s, which revolutionized the scientific understanding of the psychopharmacological effects of cannabis, and the important progresses in research related to the medical uses of the plant, questions as to the validity of the placement of cannabis and cannabis resin in Schedule IV increased. In 1991, delta-9-THC was down-scheduled from Schedule I to Schedule II of the Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971. After numerous discussions at the World Health Organization in the 2000s and 2010s, on 2 December 2020, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs adopted Decision 63/17 The decision entered into force in April 2021. Drugs and substances scheduled in other treaties Cannabinoids (natural and synthetic) and opioids (synthetic and semisynthetic) are scheduled by Convention on Psychotropic Substances. Natural cannabinols (synthetic cannabinoids omitted): • tetrahydrocannabinol, the following isomers and their stereochemical variants: • 7,8,9,10-tetrahydro-6,6,9-trimethyl-3-pentyl-6H-dibenzo[b,d]pyran-1-ol • (9R,10aR)-8,9,10,10a-tetrahydro-6,6,9-trimethyl-3-pentyl-6H-dibenzo[b,d]pyran-1-ol • (6aR,9R,10aR)-6a,9,10,10a-tetrahydro-6,6,9-trimethyl-3-pentyl-6H-dibenzo[b,d]pyran-1-ol • (6aR,10aR)-6a,7,10,10a-tetrahydro-6,6,9-trimethyl-3-pentyl-6H-dibenzo[b,d]pyran-1-ol • 6a,7,8,9-tetrahydro-6,6,9-trimethyl-3-pentyl-6H-dibenzo[b,d]pyran-1-ol • (6aR,10aR)-6a,7,8,9,10,10a-hexahydro-6,6-dimethyl-9-methylene-3-pentyl-6H-dibenzo[b,d]pyran-1-ol • delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol – (6aR,10aR)-6a,7,8,10a-tetrahydro-6,6,9-trimethyl-3-pentyl-6H-dibenzo[b,d]pyran-1-ol, and its stereochemical variants (dronabinol is the international non-proprietary name, although it refers to only one of the stereochemical variants of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, namely (−)-trans-delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) Semisynthetic agonist–antagonist opioids: • buprenorphine Synthetic agonist-antagonist opioids – benzomorphans: • pentazocine Synthetic open chain opioids having also stimulant effects: • lefetamine Opioids not scheduled Some opioids currently or formerly used in medicine are not scheduled by UN conventions, for example: • tramadol • tapentadol • nalbuphine (agonist-antagonist opioid) • butorphanol (agonist-antagonist opioid) There are of course many opioid designer drugs, not used in medicine. See also • List of UN-controlled psychotropic substances • List of UN-controlled drug precursors ==Governance==

The Single Convention gives the UN Economic and Social Council's Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) power to add or delete drugs from the Schedules, in accordance with the World Health Organization's findings and recommendations. Any Party to the treaty may request an amendment to the Schedules, or request a review of the commission's decision. The Economic and Social Council is the only body that has power to confirm, alter, or reverse the CND's scheduling decisions. The United Nations General Assembly can approve or modify any CND decision, except for scheduling decisions. The CND's annual meeting serves as a forum for nations to debate drug policy. At the 2005 meeting, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia and Iran rallied in opposition to the UN's zero-tolerance approach in international drug policy. Their appeal was vetoed by the United States, while the United Kingdom delegation remained reticent. Meanwhile, U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy Director John Walters clashed with United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa on the issue of needle exchange programs. Walters advocated strict prohibition, while Costa opined, "We must not deny these addicts any genuine opportunities to remain HIV-negative." The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) is mandated by Article 9 of the Single Convention to "endeavour to limit the cultivation, production, manufacture and use of drugs to an adequate amount required for medical and scientific purposes, to ensure their availability for such purposes and to prevent illicit cultivation, production and manufacture of, and illicit trafficking in and use of, drugs." The INCB administers the estimate system, which limits each nation's annual production of controlled substances to the estimated amounts needed for medical and scientific purposes. Article 21 provides that "the total of the quantities of each drug manufactured and imported by any country or territory in any one year shall not exceed the sum of" the quantity: • Consumed, within the limit of the relevant estimate, for medical and scientific purposes; • Used, within the limit of the relevant estimate, for the manufacture of other drugs, of preparations in Schedule Ill, and of substances not covered by this convention; • Exported; • Added to the stock for the purpose of bringing that stock up to the level specified in the relevant estimate; and • Acquired within the limit of the relevant estimate for special purposes. Article 21 bis, added to the treaty by a 1971 amendment, gives the INCB more enforcement power by allowing it to deduct from a nation's production quota of opium some or all of the amounts it determines have been produced within that nation and introduced into the illicit traffic. This could happen as a result of failing to control either illicit production or diversion of licitly produced opium to illicit purposes. In this way, the INCB can essentially punish a narcotics-exporting nation that does not control its illicit traffic by imposing an economic sanction on its medicinal narcotics industry. The Single Convention exerts power even over those nations that have not ratified it. Under Article 12, the International Narcotics Board is mandated to request that governments of countries and territories to which the convention does not apply nevertheless furnish estimates of legitimate needs in accordance with the provisions of the convention. Should they fail to do so, the convention empowers the Board to establish its own estimates for those countries or territories, and the Parties to the convention are obligated to adhere to that estimate in their dealings with that country or territory. Regarding this authority, the International Narcotics Control Board has stated: Article 14 authorizes the INCB to recommend an embargo on imports and exports of drugs from any noncompliant nations. The INCB can also issue reports critical of noncompliant nations, and forward those reports to all Parties. This happened when the United Kingdom reclassified cannabis from Class B to class C, eliminating the threat of arrest for possession. See Cannabis reclassification in the United Kingdom. The most controversial decisions of the INCB are those in which it assumes the power to interpret the Single Convention. Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Spain continue to experiment with medically supervised injection rooms, despite the INCB's objections that the Single Convention's allowance of "scientific purposes" is limited to clinical trials of pharmaceutical grade drugs and not public health interventions. These European nations have more leverage to disregard the Board's decisions because they are not dependent on licit psychoactive drug exports (which are regulated by the Board). As international lawyer Bill Bush notes, "Because of the Tasmanian opium poppy industry, Australia is more vulnerable to political pressure than, say, Germany." Article 48 designates the International Court of Justice as the arbiter of disputes about the interpretation or application of the Single Convention, if mediation, negotiation, and other forms of alternative dispute resolution fail. ==Related treaties==

Previous treaties The Single Convention was preceded by a series of other international legal instrument, that it terminated and replaced. Article 44 provided that the Single Convention's entry into force terminated several predecessor treaties, including: • The First International Opium Convention, signed at The Hague on 23 January 1912; • The Agreement concerning the Manufacture of, Internal Trade in and Use of Prepared Opium, signed at Geneva on 11 February 1925; • The Second International Opium Convention, signed at Geneva on 19 February 1925; • The Convention for Limiting the Manufacture and Regulating the Distribution of Narcotic Drugs, signed at Geneva on 13 July 1931; • The Agreement for the Control of Opium Smoking in the Far East, signed at Bangkok on 27 November 1931; • The Convention for the Suppression of the Illicit Traffic in Dangerous Drugs, signed at Geneva on 26 June 1936; • The Protocol Amending the Agreements, Conventions and Protocols on Narcotic Drugs concluded at The Hague on 23 January 1912, at Geneva on 11 February 1925 and 19 February 1925, and 13 July 1931, at Bangkok on 27 November 1931 and at Geneva on 26 June 1936 (except as it affected the latter), signed at Lake Success on 11 December 1946; • The Protocol Bringing under International Control Drugs outside the Scope of the Convention of 13 July 1931 for Limiting the Manufacture and Regulating the Distribution of Narcotic Drugs, signed at Paris on 19 November 1948; and • The Protocol for Limiting and Regulating the Cultivation of the Poppy Plant, the Production of, International and Wholesale Trade in, and Use of Opium, signed at New York on 23 June 1953. Complementary treaties on drug control The Single Convention is supplemented by two other major drug control treaties: • The Convention on Psychotropic Substances controls LSD, MDMA, and other drugs whose unique psychoactive effects exclude them from the scope of the Single Convention. It was signed at Vienna on 21 February 1971. • The United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances adds additional enforcement mechanisms for fighting drug traffickers, including asset forfeiture provisions. The convention also establishes a system of drug precursor regulation, dividing them into two tables of listed chemicals. It was signed at Vienna on 20 December 1988. Other treaties referring to the Single Convention • United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, • Convention on the Rights of the Child, • Regional legal instruments, such as European Union regulations, sometimes refer to the Single Convention. ==See also==