Drug abuse. Tendencies and ways to overcome it

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Bringing into Line the International and National Legal Norms:

Increasingly international and national legal norms against narcotics are brought into line as nations sign and ratify international acts. This leads to the mutual enrichment of the international and national legal norms aimed at blocking narcotics. On the one hand, the world community elevates national legal norms to international level by instituting international legal norms. On the other hand, nations ratify international legal acts thus adopting them as domestic legislation. International and domestic legal norms coincide almost completely sometimes, in such areas the list of narcotics and drug-related actions considered a criminal offense, as well as the procedure of filing criminal charges against persons committing drug-related crimes, and their extradition.

The Rise in the Number of Countries Taking Part in International Conferences:

There has been an increase in the number of nations taking part in international conferences on narcotics and in the number of nations signing international legal acts. This is evident in the fact that 13 nations took part in the Shanghai Opium Commission in 1909, whereas 73 nations attended the New York conference, which adopted the Uniform Convention in 1961. Since then, many nations have ratified the Uniform Convention and the 1988 UN Convention and more are going to sign them.

Setting up Specialized Agencies:

The world community has created and keeps expanding the functions of the specialized agencies dealing with narcotics, such as Permanent Central Committee on Drugs of 1925, the Special Commission of 1928, the Control Commission of 1931, the Commission on Drugs of the UN Economic and Social Council of 1961 and the UN International Committee on Drug Control, and the special operations group on financial matters of 1989 dealing with money laundering resulting from drug trafficking. These agencies handle more and more functions in response to the ever more sophisticated dissemination of drugs, and money laundering resulting from drug trafficking.

The reaction of the world community to narcotics examined above shows a deeper understanding of this dangerous phenomenon, along with the increasing sophistication of measures against it. One can predict that this tendency will remain steadfast and keep progressing.

Chapter IV. Measures to Suppress and Prevent Drug Abuse

Measures to Prevent Drug Abuse Regulated by Law:

International legal acts are realized on a national scale. National measures in turn are of the three basic types: suppression, prevention, and rehabilitation.

Legal measures of suppression are coercive measures in regard to crimes that have already been committed. They are a combination of criminal-legal, criminal-executive and legal-administrative measures.

The criminal-legal measures must be fully compatible with the criminal law and registered in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. They are expected to safeguard the public from the drug-related crimes by inflicting punishment on persons who have committed these crimes and also, in combination with it, in cases stipulated by the law, apply coercive measures of medical nature or, if need be, a system of guardianship. These measures can be divided into two groups: those referring to crime and those referring to punishment. Measures of the second group, though they are envisaged by the norms of the criminal law, seem to be closer to legal-executive measures, and can therefore be grouped, with a certain degree of relativity, into the legal-executive category.

The legal-executive measures include punishment, coercive measures of medical nature, as well as the process of executing punishment and coercive measures of medical nature along with putting under guardianship, if required.

Legal-administrative measures are covered by the norms of the administrative law, establishing responsibility for the infringements of the law and regulating compulsory treatment of drug addicts.

Measures to prevent narcotics are very diverse. Their aim is to exert influence on various elements such as on persons using drugs, sowing and raising drug-bearing crops, manufacturing, acquiring, storing and selling narcotic substances and committing other drug-related crimes; on persons committing crimes with the aim of getting the means to purchase drugs or those undertaking criminal actions in the state of narcotic intoxication; and on circumstances that are seen as causes and conditions of drug addiction, etc. The preventive influence on all these persons may take three forms: persuasion, compulsion and stimulation.

Реферат опубликован: 14/12/2009