Bulletin on narcotics最新文献

Seizure data indicate that a substantial proportion of the total quantity of drugs seized is confiscated from maritime modes of conveyance or has been transported by sea. The trafficking of narcotic drugs by sea has virtually become an industry comprised of many individual enterprises of varying size and organization. The maritime medium is one of the main ways by which drugs may enter some countries. In response to the problem, various sophisticated anti-trafficking offensives and strategies have been established or contemplated in certain geographical areas. The shipment of drugs to the primary consuming countries has not been curbed, however, and there is every indication that the overall movement of drugs is still unimpeded.

Insufficient resources, services, staff, facilities and attention at the policymaking level are devoted to demand reduction measures, especially preventive education for young persons. Instead, emphasis is placed on and disproportionate resources are allocated to supply reduction measures and activities such as suppressing and/or limiting the availability of illicit drugs. Prevention policy constitutes a viable approach to solving the problem of illicit drug trafficking and consumption. The crux of the problem is not the availability of illicit drugs, but the demand of consumers for the substances. Preventive education for the young is an indispensable ingredient of effective prevention policy. The school environment can be instrumental in developing systematic and lasting preventive education. An essential condition, which, according to the author, is lacking in Latin America, is that educators should be provided with the training and training tools needed to enable them to perform properly as agents of prevention policy. A number of recommendations to reduce illicit drug demand and consumption through prevention are made, including giving priority to a comprehensive and systematically applied prevention policy focusing on the young and involving an educational approach and tools that are progressive and highly specialized, as well as research that is intensified and of better quality.

The American approach to drug control is conditioned by several national characteristics, including fragmentation of the law enforcement system, a 12,000-mile international boundary and a legal system that restricts police authority to search, arrest, detain, eavesdrop and maintain intelligence files. Drug problems in the United States, though, are by all accounts greater than in any other country. Enforcement has traditionally emphasized street-level arrests, investigation of distribution networks, crop eradication and smuggling interdiction. These practices can be shown to produce arrests and seizures, but there is little evidence to show that they reduce drug supply or drug abuse. More contemporary and promising approaches include community policing, problem-oriented policing, financially oriented investigations, increased international co-operation and a renewed emphasis on drug demand reduction. The most pressing needs in law enforcement are (a) improved intelligence-gathering and analysis and (b) research on the illicit drug industry and on the effectiveness of drug control strategies.

Continuation of the practice of experimental administration of cocaine to cocaine-addicted volunteers has been recommended by some investigators. The author's view is that the risk of experimental use of cocaine outweighs its benefits and that this practice should not be pursued. The author describes the damaging effects of cocaine on the cardiovascular system, particularly its ability to induce myocardial band necrosis, and the unique reinforcing properties of the drug. The legal and ethical issues raised by the experimental use of cocaine are also discussed.

Legal regulation of drugs in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has tended to centre on the criminalization of the production, supply, possession, purchase, use and abuse of drugs, in which women and men are generally treated similarly. Women have, however, received differential legal treatment in the context of their role as mothers, where drug use can result in what may be considered the ultimate sanction against drug use for a woman: the loss of custody of a child vis-à-vis another parent or guardian, an adopter or even the State. Even drug use prior to the birth of the child can be relevant.

The American juvenile justice system continues to be an arena in which a myriad of varying values and practices come under constant challenge and close scrutiny, not only from those outside the system, but particularly by those within the system, those on the firing-line--the judges, court administrators, prosecutors, defenders, police, social workers and probation officers who are responsible for the operation of the system. Every juvenile court and the personnel who work with it are faced with the difficult process of evaluating and adapting to multiple "standards" and the challenges of implementing effective change within the perimeters of varying systems and statutes. The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges recognizes that the responsibility for further improvement, for effective and long-lasting change, in a juvenile justice system that operates in a vastly complex society will rest even more heavily in the future where it has been in the past--on the individual judge and practitioner.

An analysis of drug samples received by the National Toxicology Institute at Madrid during the period from September 1985 to May 1987 was undertaken with a view to carrying out an epidemiological assessment of drug abuse. Of 414 street drug samples, 63.5 per cent contained heroin, 12.5 per cent cocaine, 8.5 per cent amphetamine and 15.4 per cent other substances. The concentration of heroin ranged from 21 to 60 per cent in most of the samples (91.8 per cent) that contained it. Similar concentrations of cocaine were found in the samples containing that substance. Adulterants were detected in 78.8 per cent of the samples containing heroin, 59.6 per cent of the samples containing cocaine and 56 per cent of the samples containing amphetamine. The most common adulterants in the samples containing heroin were caffeine (68.4 per cent), phenobarbital (19.7 per cent), methaqualone (13.4 per cent) and procaine (13.4 per cent), while lidocaine was the most common adulterant (52 per cent) in the samples containing cocaine.

Japan experienced a serious stimulant epidemic during the period from 1946 to 1956 and has been experiencing a second one since 1970. Over the years, a series of drug control measures have been put into effect by the Japanese Government. In 1953, the Japanese police system was reorganized, centralized and made more efficient. Law enforcement efforts were intensified, supported by the criminalization of stimulant abuse with the enactment of the Stimulant Control Law in 1951 and subsequent amendments to it that were rigorously enforced, resulting in more arrests, indictments and relatively harsh penalties for stimulant offences, as well as an increase in the number and volume of confiscations. In 1951, 26 per cent of those arrested for stimulant offences were under the age of 20. About half of those arrested were stimulant-addicted. The number of arrests increased threefold from 1951 to 1954. The amount of seized stimulants also increased considerably during that period. In 1954, there were about 550,000 chronic stimulant users and 2 million ex-users. From 1980 to 1985, the number of stimulant arrests was relatively stable, levelling off at about 20,000 annually. About half of those arrested were recidivists. In 1985, a record high of nearly 300 kg of stimulants were seized. In 1960, heavy usage of sleeping pills among young persons began in Tokyo; this was considered a foreshadowing of a period of youth drug abuse in Japan. In 1967, there was an outbreak of inhalant use among young people; since 1975, about 40,000 people have been arrested each year for inhalant-related offences.

From 1982 to 1986, there was an overall increase in the number and amount of illicit cocaine seized at São Paulo. There was a total of 1,552 seizures of illicit cocaine, which were confirmed by testing in the laboratory of the Technical Service of Forensic Toxicology, a section of the Medical-Legal Institute of São Paulo. The increase in cocaine seizures was accompanied by an increase in cocaine-related mortality. Although there were no cocaine-related deaths reported in the city before 1982, there was an increasing trend in the number of such deaths during the five-year period that followed.

In Mexico, drug abuse is considered a public health problem that is growing rapidly, especially among minors, who constitute about one half of the total population of the country. To facilitate an estimation of the drug problem and its trends in the country, the Information Reporting System on Drugs (IRSD) was established in 1986 by the Mexican Institute of Psychiatry at the request of the National Council against Addictions. IRSD is an "event-reporting" type of information system based on two month-long cross-sectional evaluations that are made each year in June and November. Data for IRSD are gathered via a questionnaire called the individual report on drug abuse, which is completed by illicit drug users upon admission to health and criminal justice facilities and institutions at Mexico City during the evaluation periods. This article describes the objectives of IRSD, its development and its functioning, as well as some of its findings.