LONDON– ICOS, an international security and development think tank, today announced the establishment of an expert panel which will review the effectiveness of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB). The Council said that the panel, which will be drawn from various parts of the world, will assess how the Board fulfils its functions. The Panel will present a series of recommendations for reform, especially in light of the upcoming review of global drug policy at the UN General Assembly Special Session in 2008.
“The INCB is responsible for ensuring adequate supplies of drugs for medical use,” said Emmanuel Reinert, Executive Director of ICOS. “Currently millions of people are suffering due to a mounting global shortage of opium-based painkillers such as morphine and codeine, especially in the developing world. The methods used by the INCB to calculate the amounts needed of these medicines are flawed and need to be reconsidered.”
The price of these medicines is a key issue because it is being kept artificially high. For example, in Argentina and Mexico, the monthly cost of opium-based pain relief therapy can be more than 200% of the average monthly income.
Research has shown that the current availability of opium-based medicines is insufficient to meet the global demand for pain relief – it is only in the seven richest countries which consume 80% of the world’s morphine.
“The so-called ‘over-supply’ as stated by the INCB only applies to this small ‘club,’” said Reinert. “For countries which are not part of this club – 80% of the world’s population – there is little or no access to pain-relieving medicines. Developing countries have access to only about 6% of the world’s supply of opium-based medicines. This is evidence that there is a very real shortage of these medicines.”
The Council said that even though the INCB itself has recognised that “opioid analgesics are still in short supply and not always available for the people who need them, particularly in developing countries” (Hamid Ghodse, President of the INCB, May 2005), it has done nothing to increase availability of these essential medicines.
ICOS said that the Board has missed the opportunity to increase the supply of these vital medicines: In Afghanistan, for example, it has neglected to shift the use of the raw materials needed for their production away from the illegal drug trade towards the medicinal painkiller market.
87% of the world’s opium originates in Afghanistan. The Council said that current counter-narcotics approaches being used in Afghanistan are clearly not working – 2005 saw a decrease of only 2% of opium production.
“The production of opium in Afghanistan for the illegal drug trade, which is currently crippling the country’s reconstruction, could be used to fill the shortage of morphine needed in developing countries,” said Reinert.
A new market could be developed to address unmet needs - Afghanistan could become the producer of “humanitarian” morphine for the developing world. For example, under the so-called “80-20 Rule”, Turkey and India benefit from preferential trade agreements with the US. A similar system could be developed for Afghan morphine, where it could supply itself or neighbouring countries in need of these medicines.
The Council said that the INCB has missed the opportunity to be part of the solution in Afghanistan: the implementation of a system which would licence the cultivation of opium for the production of essential medicines such as morphine and codeine. But the INCB Report does not give credit to this proposal which has formally been identified as a solution by the European Parliament.
“The INCB’s reaction to opium licensing for the production of medicines in Afghanistan is an example of the Board’s refusal to use its own tools to solve this crisis,” said Reinert. “The Board has missed the opportunity to implement a policy which holds development and security at its core in the place where it is needed most. Afghanistan has the chance to be a major producer of much-needed pain-relieving medicines, and the INCB should encourage this.”
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