Governing Drugs Globally: The World Health Organization and Public Health in International Drug Control

Abstract

This article charts the public health argument in international drug control through the activities of the World Health Organization (WHO), an underaddressed actor in histories of global drug policy. From the postwar period to the 1980s, the aims of international drug control and international health became deeply interlinked. This realization dawned slowly on both WHO and United Nations drug agencies as they faced complex and urgent problems without clear answers. WHO was most influential in the years leading up to and just after the Single Convention, critically establishing that people dependent on drugs were patients. In the 1970s, the agency’s role declined due to the United States declaring its “war on drugs” foreign policy and the rise of pharmaceutical lobbying. By the 1980s, WHO found itself on the front lines of the HIV crisis through injecting drug use, constructing ad hoc policy and initiating interventions in collaboration with country governments and health professionals.