At the 55th meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs held in Vienna March 12 – 16th Damon Barrett, Human Rights expert at Harm Reduction International spoke candidly in the plenary session regarding the erroneous statements made by the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) in their recent annual report (2011) concerning Vancouver’s supervised injection site, Insite.
In paragraph 437 of the report the INCB clearly states: “drug injection and consumption outlets that allow illicit drug possession and use are not in line with the international drug control conventions”. This is an outright falsehood and the United Nations Drug Control Program’s own legal advice commissioned in 2002 admits as much. It can be read here.
Insite Press Conference
The fact that the INCB still carries on trumpeting this false information ten years after the UN’s legal opinion was sought makes a mockery of the INCB’s integrity and credibility.
Here is the offending paragraph from the INCB report:
437. In September 2011, the Supreme Court of Canada handed down its judgement with respect to the applicability of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to a supervised drug injection facility in Vancouver. The facility had been allowed to operate due to an exemption to the application of the law for “medical or scientific purposes” that had been granted by a previous Government. The Court ruled against the Government’s decision to refuse to extend the injection facility’s legal exemption, thereby allowing the facility to continue to operate. The Board reiterates that under international law, provisions of national law cannot be invoked to justify non-compliance with the international drug control treaties to which a State has become a party. The Board further reiterates its position that drug injection and consumption outlets that allow illicit drug possession and use are not in line with the international drug control conventions, to which Canada is a party.
Damon Barrett set the record straight for the INCB with this statement:
The recent Canadian Supreme Court decision on Vancouver’s safe injection facility is criticized as running contrary to article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. This states that national law cannot be used to justify non-compliance with international legal obligations. This is true. But the Canadian Supreme Court Case was decided on the basis of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a constitutional document. As the Board is aware, article 3(2) of the 1988 Convention relating to the requirement to criminalize possession for personal use is subject to States parties’ constitutional principles. Similar wording is used in relation to the penal provisions of the 1961 Single Convention. In addition, in 2002, the UNDCP legal affairs team stated in an opinion on the matter that such interventions do not breach the conventions.
As such, there is no conflict between the Canadian Supreme Court ruling and the drug conventions. These provisions of the treaties, however, and the UNDCP opinion are not referred to in the Board’s analysis of the case. We would welcome clarification of the Board’s view of the Canadian Supreme Court decision in the light of these terms of the drug conventions and its view of the 2002 UNDCP opinion.
To Canada’s credit the Canadian delegation also spoke up and let the plenary know that Canada was indeed in full compliance with all of the international treaties pertaining to drug control. Now that this mater is settled in the international arena, we look forward to our Justice Minister Nicholson reaffirming these facts for the Canadian public.
