Home > Sturm College of Law > Denver Journal of International Law & Policy > Vol. 51 (2022-2023) > No. 1 (2022)
Abstract
The regulation of drugs under international law is underpinned by a framework largely unchanged since the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. Sixty years later, this framework continues to inform and restrain domestic drug laws, requiring countries to criminally sanction the possession and trade in specified substances, including those which may otherwise be considered mild or commercially useful. Comparing this framework with the United Nations' "Agenda 2030" Sustainable Development Goals reveals that the international community's ambitions, at least insofar as health, economics, and justice are concerned, are undermined by the Single Convention framework. This is because the prohibitionist approach which it mandates leads to more addiction, crime, and corruption, than health-based approaches to societal drug use and abuse. It likewise robs public institutions of tax revenue by prompting costly but futile law enforcement operations, and by precluding the emergence of legitimate job-creating and tax-generating markets.
Recommended Citation
Aidan Peter O'Callaghan, International Drug Law and the Sustainable Development Goals: A Sober Assessment of Compatibility, 51 DENV. J. INT'l L. & POL'y 27 (2022).