Note by the Secretariat of the CND, 23 October 1997 

COMMISSION ON NARCOTIC DRUGS ACTING AS PREPARATORY BODY FOR THE SPECIAL SESSION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY DEVOTED TO THE FIGHT AGAINST THE ILLICIT PRODUCTION, SALE, DEMAND, TRAFFIC AND DISTRIBUTION OF NARCOTIC DRUGS AND PSYCHOTROPIC SUBSTANCES AND RELATED ACTIVITIES

Third informal open-ended inter-sessional meeting
Vienna, 5 December 1997
Item 2 of the provisional agenda*

ERADICATION OF ILLICIT NARCOTIC CROPS
AND PROMOTION OF ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES

Contents

1. Development of a Global Strategy for the Elimination of Illicit Crops
2. Increased Cooperation in Alternative Development
3. Providing Accurate Information on Illicit Crop Cultivation
4. Strengthening the Drug Control System Through Institution-building
5. Improved Information about Alternative Development Results
6. Finding Safe Means of Eradication

*E/CN.711997/PC/8.
V.97-27490T

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I. Development of a Global Strategy for the Elimination of Illicit Crops

Problem

1. The United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) and its predecessor bodies have accumulated a large corpus of knowledge and operational experience in the area of reduction of illicit crops. Illicit crop eradication, crop substitution and alternative development have been adopted as strategies to reduce illicit drug supply in countries in which drug crops are illicitly produced. The reduction or elimination of illicit drug crops in areas in which UNDCP and Governments and bilateral development institutions have intervened has not led to an overall reduction of areas under illicit crop cultivation, as new or non-traditional production areas have replaced old or traditional ones.

2. No comprehensive attempt has been made yet to conceptualize principles and modalities required to address this problem at the global level. And no time-frame has been defined and no estimation has been made of the resources needed to make attainment of this objective possible.

Action

3. UNDCP therefore intends to formulate a global strategy to eliminate the illicit cultivation of drug crops, focusing on the coca bush and the opium poppy. The strategy will build on the experience in alternative development projects accumulated by Governments, bilateral and multilateral institutions and UNDCP and will include a comprehensive proposal for action. The progress on the strategy will be reported to the General Assembly at its special session on drug control that is to be held in 1998.

II. Increased Cooperation in Alternative Development

Problem

4. Although an increase in cooperation has taken place in the last decade as exemplified by alternative development projects, the coordination of planning and resource allocation at the national and international levels can be improved. The long-term economic and political necessity for Governments to integrate such areas of illicit crop cultivation needs to be linked to overall national development planning and to increased commitment both to national drug control plans and to national economic and agricultural development plans.

Action

5. UNDCP should continue its cooperation with other United Nations entities working in rural development, following examples of successful interaction with relevant United Nations organizations in Asia and Latin America.

6. International financial institutions should seek the coordination of internationally assisted national development plans in order to incorporate alternative development measures at the national and international levels.

7. A sustainable economic environment should be provided at the national and international levels to facilitate the presence of market forces that make illicit crop cultivation less attractive. From an international perspective, trade arrangements and concessions offering increased access of agricultural exports to international markets should contribute to resolving price and marketing problems associated with substituting legal cash crops for illicit crops.

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8. Alternative development has been shown to be most successful where there is political will on the part of the Governments concerned to make it a priority. Governments should renew their commitment to effective alternative development programmes by systematically incorporating areas under illicit crop cultivation into national development plans, including those involving international assistance, and by increasing government capacity to design, implement and monitor alternative development measures.

III. Providing Accurate Information on Illicit Crop Cultivation

Problem

9. Both the Comprehensive Multidisciplinary Outline of Future Activities in Drug Abuse Control and the Global Programme of Action adopted by the General Assembly at its seventeenth special session refer to the need to identify illicit crop cultivation and this need has been subsequently recognized by the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in its resolutions. While UNDCP has undertaken a number of initiatives to increase its information on illicit crop cultivation, they have been ad hoc initiatives of a limited scale, designed to meet specific requirements.

Action

10. UNDCP should establish a database to provide annual data on the global cultivation of illicit crops, starting with key areas of production and relying on its own, government and other bilateral sources.

11. Member States should provide information through the annual reports questionnaire and by other means on the extent of illicit crop cultivation and eradication.

12. UNDCP should provide Member States with technical support on methods of data collection and monitoring, ensuring that the technology used and the methodology followed are appropriate to the circumstances in each Member State.

IV. Strengthening the Drug Control System Through Institution-Builidng

Problem

13. As the international repository for alternative development measures, UNDCP has been relied on by Member States for guidance and funding regarding alternative development. Governments need to develop, and increasingly rely on, their own capacities as UNDCP will be focusing increasingly on measures to support capacity-building and institution-building.

Action

14. The direct involvement of Member States in the design, planning and implementation of alternative development measures should be increased, enabling Member States to profit from the experience of UNDCP in alternative development.

15. Member States in which illicit crop cultivation occurs should increase their efforts to build institutions capable of managing alternative development projects and programmes as part of integrated national development programmes, with support from UNDCP.

16. Through community-based approaches and supportive, broadly focused development measures, UNDCP should provide technical assistance for institution-building at the local, national and regional levels.

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17. Emphasis should be placed on community-based approaches to natural resource management in sustainable production systems, approaches consistent with participatory, people-centred methods of development that rely on the knowledge, skills, interests and needs of the local population as a basis for appropriate intervention. This approach is especially important for alternative development given the sociocultural dimensions of illicit crop cultivation.

V. Improved Information about Alternative Development Results

Problem

18. Due to the complex economic, social and political contexts, preventing, reducing and eliminating illicit crop cultivation through alternative development measures still pose a challenge despite the positive results achieved in most project areas. The process by which Governments and United Nations agencies learn needs to be strengthened. By improving the dissemination of results, the experience that they have accumulated could be of more benefit.

Action

19. UNDCP should improve the dissemination of the results of alternative development programmes and projects to Member States, other United Nations entities and the general public.

20. Member States should improve their international cooperation in the exchange of relevant information on alternative development policies and results.

VI. Finding Safe Means of Eradication

21. Pursuant to Economic and Social Council resolution E/1 988/9, annex, paragraph 11, an Expert Group Meeting on Environmentally Safe Methods for the Eradication of Illicit Narcotic Plants was held at Vienna from 4 to 8 December 1989. The Expert Group recommended the initiation of a comprehensive research and development programma to enable current technological developments to be put to practical use in the field and to assess the environmental impact of the proposed methods using modern approaches. A research programma for environmentally safe methods of eradicating illicit drug plants was drawn up and subsequently amended where necessary by a panel of experts convened by UNDCP at Vienna in November 1992 and, most recently, by a similar panel in September 1997.

Problem

22. The draft research programma dealing with the three principal narcotic plants (the coca bush, the opium poppy and cannabis) requires further input in order for the environmental impact of the proposed eradication methods to be assessed using modern approaches approved by the major international pesticide regulatory authorities.

Action

23. The main needs include:

(a) Extensive environmental impact studies focusing initially on those herbicides which are currently used for control of illicit narcotic plants and which may be required for use in other geographical regions;

(b) Identification of new herbicidal chemicals that are environmentally safe and effective in controlling narcotic plants in order to keep pace with the rapid advances in herbicide chemistry and to allow the timely

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adoption of any chemical offering the advantages of increased environmental safety, efficacy and economic efficiency;

(c) Identification of biological control methods appropriate to both the classical strategy (using agents that establish, multiply, spread and persist in the areas producing the illicit crops) and the microbial herbicide strategy (inundating each target plant with a pathogenic organism for that specific plant);

(d) Surveys and collections of alternative biological control agents to ensure continued availability of suitable agents, should any of the lead candidates be rejected as a result of new research findings or countermeasures implemented by traffickers of narcotic drugs;

(e) Taxonomic studies of the narcotic plants, especially the opium poppy and cannabis, using modern techniques of genetic fingerprinting, in order to establish the range of genetic variation present in populations in the producer countries.

24. Output of the research programma should be collated and distributed, in a suitable form, to interested Member States on a regular basis. When sufficient data are available, they should be published in recognized scientific publications and as United Nations handbooks of methods for the eradication of narcotic plants. These should include methods of assessing the environmental impact of the eradication methods. Eradication programmes will succeed only if support strategies, such as crop substitution or alternative development, are put in place at the same time.