INCB’s busy spring: Elections, the 2020 annual report, and CND

Spring 2021 has proven to be a busy time for the International Narcotics Control Bureau (INCB), as seven new members were elected to the Board; the INCB released its 2020 Annual Report; and its President took part in the 64th session of Commission on Narcotic Drugs.

On 20th April 2021, the UN Economic and Social Council elected 7 members of the INCB for the 5-year period stretching from March 2022 to February 2027. (The INCB has, in total, 13 members). These include two members nominated by the World Health Organisation: current INCB President Cornelis de Joncheere (Netherlands) and Richard Phillip Mattick (Australia); as well as 5 members nominated by Member States: David T. Johnson (United States), Nirinomenjanahary Larissa Razanadimby (Madagascar), Sevil H. H. Atasoy (Turkey), Lu Lin (China) and Galina Korchagina (Russian Federation).

A month before, on 25th March 2021, the INCB had launched its Annual Report 2020. The report includes a thematic section on old people who use drugs, which highlights that older people are the demographic where drug use is growing at a fastest pace, as well as sections on treaty compliance and country-by-country analyses. These sections underscore the overwhelming lack of medicines for pain relief in certain regions; concerns about human rights violations connected to drug control; and the ongoing worry regarding the accommodation of the international drug conventions and national-level initiatives to legally regulate drugs such as cannabis.