INCB meets in Vienna

On 30th October, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) opened its 111th Session in Vienna. This session will last for two weeks and, in keeping with the INCB's renewed emphasis on the availability of controlled medicines, discussions will centre on access to essential medicines in emergencies and on the licit cultivation of opium poppy, as well as on initiatives on the non-medical use of cannabis and the application of international law.

Once again, it is encouraging to see that the Board's new President Dr Lochan Naidoo is foregrounding the issues around access to controlled medicines, and particularly the problems encountered by many states in attempting to estimate their medicinal requirements in a way which is genuinely adequate to the needs of their populations. Whether the INCB's own preferred methodology will meet these needs is another question. Likewise, the stated objective of evaluating the present licit cultivation of opium poppy for medicinal purposes is an important one and it will be interesting to see to what conclusions the Board comes. It has in the recent past reiterated that adequate levels of opiates exist to meet global need, despite the acknowledged lack of pain relief across much of the world.

The INCB's monitoring of states' compliance with the drug control treaties is likely to see further responses to the actions of those governments whose cannabis policies have begun to permit the non-medical consumption of the drug by their citizens, in contravention of the treaty stipulation that use of the substances is restricted to medical and scientific purposes. The Board's advice to those countries will feature in its next Annual Report, due in March 2015.

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