Attached is the proposal discussed with you July 6 for a new
international convention to deal broadly with the opium problem and to
multilateralize pressure on states like Turkey. The existing
international instrument, the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs,
negotiated in 1961, relies on voluntary cooperation of states. The
proposed new convention would (a) fix quotas for legal export that would
be tied to world need and a country’s success in controlling illegal
diversion; (b) establish an opium control organization with significant
power to gather information, fix quotas, and. impose penalties; (c)
establish a Diversification Fund capable of providing significant
assistance to opium producing states desirous of limiting and eventually
eradicating production.
In order to deal with another phase of the drug problem and to make
strict controls more palatable for producing states, the proposal
suggests the U.S. and other manufacturing states express a willingness
to accept parallel regulations of manufacture and export of opium based
and synthetic drugs and to explore the feasibility of similar regulation
of the manufacture and export of all drugs.
We believe that consideration of this proposal now is propitious. The
climate is more receptive than in 1961 for acceptance of meaningful
international controls. A
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reluctant country like Turkey may be encouraged to put its affairs in
order by the prospect of such a convention even before it is adopted. It
is a natural “fall back” position to Under Secretary Richardson’s recent suggestion that the
White House Task Force on Narcotics consider whether the U.S. could
adopt a stance in international forums that there should be worldwide
elimination of opium production. If it is determined that a position of
worldwide elimination is not feasible, because of the medical
professions continued need for opium derivatives for medicinal purposes,
then the next logical step is restricted, carefully controlled
production. A quota proposal could serve as a realistic, constructive
U.S. position in the next international meeting on narcotics.
Attachment
A Proposal for a New International Convention
to Deal with the Opium Problem
The Problem
Opium presents a grave menace to the health of the U.S. and other
societies, but its production and export cannot be banned as long as
it remains indispensable for legitimate medical purposes. Once some
legal use for opium is conceded, it becomes difficult to determine
what opium is intended for legal and what for illegal purposes.
Likewise, it becomes difficult to convince one country which
produces significant quantities of opium upon which a portion of its
economy depends that it would not be discriminatory for it to forego
production totally. Turkey is the estimated source of 80% of the
heroin illicitly entering the U.S., but the illegal opium trade is
so profitable that criminal elements would surely establish new
supply lines elsewhere in the event that Turkey establishes better
controls or eliminates production. The problem is multi-lateral
rather than bi-lateral and should be dealt with in the broadest
possible international context. The existing international
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agreement, the Single
Convention on Narcotic Drugs, drafted in 1961, lacks effective
sanctions and is inadequate. What is needed is an international
instrument that would 1) recommit nations to the limitation of opium
production and export solely for medical and scientific
requirements; 2) provide for a precise determination of such
requirements and actual production; 3) contain some sticks
(including world opinion, embargo, inspection, and loss of
diversification assistance) and carrots (including quotas of the
legal market and substantial diversification assistance) so that
nations will feel a need to make greater efforts to eradicate excess
production and diversion into the illicit market. The threat that
this instrument might be adopted should encourage countries to
enforce immediately their compliance with existing obligations.
The Single Convention of 1961
The Single Convention was drafted at a United Nations conference and
makes use of the UN’s Economic and
Social Council, ECOSOC’s
Commission on Narcotic Drugs, and an
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International Narcotics Control Board. These
international control organs possess, however, essentially only
recommendatory powers. The Single Convention relies primarily on the
character of cooperation received from individual states that remain
largely free to make their own decisions. There is loose
international supervision with dependence upon information supplied
by states and virtually no effort to develop an international policy
that would correlate a party’s success in controlling illegal drug
use with its right of access to the legal drug trade. There is also
no effort in the Single Convention to en-courage the development of
situations in which parties will no longer require drugs and in
which producing countries will be able to afford a decline in the
market.
Objections to Stronger Control
The 1953 Protocol for Limiting and Regulating the Cultivation of the
Poppy Plant actually had a number of stronger provisions than the
Single Convention which largely superseded it. Objections to strong
controls expressed
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during negotiation of the Single Convention particularly by the
Soviet Bloc and by newly independent countries included 1) dislike
of open inspection; and 2) dislike of the principle of restricting
legal production to a handful of long-established states and
embargoing all other states. Producing countries have shown a
tendency to oppose strong controls that fall only upon them. The
atmosphere in 1970 may be more conducive to acceptance of strong
measures. The magnitude of the problem is more apparent. Younger
countries are more mature and perhaps more aware that there is no
economic bonanza for them in opium. Various degrees of inspection
have been accepted by the Soviet Union in other sensitive agreements
(Outer Space, Antarctica, and Draft Seabees Disarmament
Treaties).
We can take additional steps to reduce opposition. The sensitivities
of younger countries could be assuaged by a system that would give
them at least the theoretical right to negotiate a legal production
quota. They should thus be more willing to accept the principle of
sanctions against a
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country producing opium that is exported without a quota. We can
also develop a series of information gathering devices as fall backs
between on-site inspection and the inadequate provisions of the
Single Convention, including possible use of satellites or
provisions for mandatory response to a range of informational
requests. We can consider pacing ourselves and other countries that
manufacture drugs from opium bases or produce synthetic substitutes
under an international supervision and control that parallels the
supervision and control we propose for producing countries. This
could be in itself a significant contribution to the drug problem,
and it would at least signal to producing countries that we are
serious and willing to submit to burdens ourselves. The latter point
would be politically useful in getting the agreement of a number of
sensitive producing countries.
Framework of a Stronger Opium Control
The Framework of a stronger opium control would include 1) an
organization composed of all interested nations and
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entrusted with
substantial powers; 2) a quota system for legal export of opium tied
to a country’s success in preventing illegal diversion; 3) a system
by which the controlling body would be able to obtain and verify
full information relating to opium; 4) binding commitments by
parties to take whatever action is necessary and supervision of
these commitments by the organization; 5) a Diversification Fund to
help parties limit and eventually eradicate opium production. An
attempt could also be made to include in the Convention controls on
manufacture and export of opium-based drugs and synthetics and
quotas and controls for production of opium intended only for
domestic use. Many of the specific mechanisms are based on those
already in operation in the International Coffee Agreement of
1968.
The new organization would have a governing body composed of
interested nations including producers of opium as well as those
with legal use interests and illegal consumption problems. This body
should have extensive powers to
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regulate the international flow of opium, and
it should have full access to necessary statistical data, including
obligatory receipt of all certification information relating to
every international transfer of opium. It should have specific
authority to require Members to furnish such information as it
considers necessary for its operations and to question a member not
supplying requested information within a reasonable time. In
addition to material which the parties supply it, the opium body
should also have investigatory powers such as those granted the
International Coffee Council in Article 43(3) of the Coffee
Agreement, which provides that:
“The Council shall, either directly or through an
internationally recognized worldwide organization, take all
necessary steps so that at any time it will be able to
satisfy itself that Certificates or Origin and Certificates
of Re-export are being issued and used correctly and to
ascertain the quantities of coffee which have been, exported
by each Member.”
The powers granted the opium body would reflect the need to ascertain
the quantities of opium exported in any manner from each Member
including quantities smuggled without the Member’s knowledge.
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With access to detailed and reliable information on need for opium,
production capabilities, and export-import patterns, the body could
fix specific quotas for the legal movement of opium. Basic quotas
might be negotiated for each country and distributed voting on
annual quota revisions and other matters geared to reflect the
different interests of importers and exporters as well as compliance
with the basic obligation to fulfill commitments and to act against
illegal traffic.
Members of the body could undertake firm commitments add give to the
body the powers included in Article 38 of the Coffee Agreement:
- “1) Exporting Members subject to quotas shall adopt the
measures required to ensure full compliance with all
provisions of the Agreement relating to quotas. In addition
to any measures it may itself take, the Council by a
distributed two-thirds majority vote may require such
Members to adopt additional measures for the effective
implementation of the quota system provided for in the
Agreement.
- “2) Exporting Members shall not exceed the annual and
quarterly export quotas allocated to them.”
In addition, Article 38 provides that the Council may impose a
graduated series of punishments including expulsion upon
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members violating their
quotas. The opium body would consider effective action to prevent
smuggling as a function of a states compliance with its quota.
A producing country would naturally seek to obtain as large a share
of the legal trade as possible. The body would correlate quotas with
the success of countries in reducing production to the bare minimum
required for legal uses. Improved documentation would allow that
bare minimum to be more precisely fixed, and access to information
would provide an objective basis on which to make quota decisions. A
country producing obviously more opium than it consumed and for
which it had a quota would find its quota reduced accordingly. It
would thus have considerable reason to take steps to reduce domestic
production, and it would find it easier to take such steps since the
impetus would be provided by international action rather than
unilateral foreign pressure.
This trend would be enhanced if states could accept provisions
similar to Article 48 of the Coffee Agreement by which
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“Each producing Member undertakes to adjust its production of
coffee to a level not exceeding that needed for domestic
consumption, permitted exports and stocks…”
That Article also provides that Members must obtain the approval of
the Council for production goals, that the Council will have the
power to review those production goals “and shall revise them to the
extent necessary to ensure that the aggregate of the individual
goals is consistent with estimated world requirements.” Members
“undertake to conform with the individual production goals
established…” and to “apply whatever policies and procedures [they]
deem(s) necessary for this purpose.” The Council, moreover, is
empowered to pass on the adequacy of these policies and procedures
and if it finds insufficient compliance may suspend a members voting
rights, and “If, ... after the elapse of such additional period as
the Council shall determine it is established that the Member
concerned has not taken the steps necessary to implement a policy to
conform with the objectives of this Article, the Council may require
the withdrawal of such Member from the Organization....”
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Certain other devices in the Coffee Agreement also have applications
for opium. Article 46 has as its goal sponsorship by the Council of
“the promotion of coffee consumption,” an end which obviously would
not be paralleled in an opium agreement. An opium agreement might
well, however, contain a commitment by the controlling body to
sponsor research on and development of opium substitutes, and to
disseminate information on the harmful effects of drugs. Article 54
establishes “the Diversification Fund of the International Coffee
Organization to further the objectives of limiting the production of
coffee in order to bring supply into reasonable balance with world
demand.” A similar fund should be developed within the context of an
opium agreement that would help producing countries over the
difficulties of agricultural conversion. Participation in the
Diversification Fund is compulsory for major coffee exporters and
discretionary for importers and minor exporters, but different
participation guidelines obviously could be structured to the opium
situation. The psychological factor of the Funds multilateral
involvement and the concrete economic and technical aid it could
offer would be major
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inducements to producing countries to control their crops strictly
and eventually to eliminate them. The Fund would also offer the U.S.
an excellent forum in which to press for as rapid a cutback of
production as feasible.
Possible Additional Elements and Negotiating
Points
As a first and optimum proposal in negotiating this instrument, we
could seek the right, patterned on that described in the Statute of
the International Atomic Energy Agency, of on-site inspection within
any contracting party by an international team representing the
organization. The inspecting team might be empowered to destroy
clearly illicit stocks, to issue immediate recommendations to the
party, or merely to report to the organization. We might also
explore the feasibility of observation by satellite or airplanes.
The mandatory informational provisions described in the previous
section would represent a feasible compromise between this and the
system in effect under the Single Convention.
Producing countries would be interested in stringent controls on
manufacturing countries. We might begin by offering the organization
a parallel right of on-site inspection within manufacturing
countries, and we could also
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indicate a willingness to negotiate a quota
system for export of manufactured and synthetic drugs paralleling
the quota system for export of opium.
Ideally international control would extend substantially to opium
intended only for domestic use, but this might be considered too
great an incursion on sovereignty by many countries. Supervision of
production goals like that provided in the Coffee Agreement would
offer, however, significant control of domestic consumption and
combined with the organizations power to reduce quotas of
non-complying parties and to manage the Diversification Fund would
offer guarantees against the possibility that a party would not act
effectively to prevent diversion of opium produced ostensibly for
domestic use. We should encourage producers to submit to more
explicit controls over all production by agreeing to accept
reciprocally equal regulation of all phases of manufacture and
distribution of opium based drugs and synthetics a well as
regulation of their export, and we should indicate a further
willingness to explore the feasibility
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of extending the regulatory system to the
manufacture and export of all types of drugs.
This framework would provide the international community with more
significant tools than it has ever possessed to fight the opium
problem. Equally important, it would work on the will of countries
to comply with their commitments. A country that refused to join
would be branded an outcast, its production would offer an
unequivocal target for international police work, and it would lose
a legal source of income and the opportunity to receive assistance
from the Diversification Fund. The same factors would apply
proportionately to contracting parties whose performance or effort
was deficient. Finally, although it would take some time to
establish this framework by treaty, the fact that it was under
active consideration and might soon be adopted should spur countries
to improve their opium control procedures.
Method of Strengthening Opium Control
The framework described above is sufficiently novel that it is
properly the subject of a new Convention that would,
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at least for opium,
supplement the Single Convention between contracting parties. It
should be developed within the U.N. system, however, for maximum
effectiveness and acceptability. The initial proposal and
preliminary discussions would logically be in ECOSOC and the Commission on
Narcotic Drugs. ECOSOC could then
call an international conference as it is empowered to do by Article
62(4) of the U.N. Charter “on matters falling within its
competence.” Procedural considerations, including advance
consultations with a range of probable problem countries (e.g. the
Soviet Union, Turkey, India) should receive careful study and
planning in an effort to minimize potential opposition and hopefully
to obtain broad co-sponsorship for a new convention.
