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174. Единая конвенция о наркотических средствах 1961 года с поправками, внесенными в нее в соответствии с Протоколом 1972 года о поправках к Единой конвенции о наркотических средствах 1961 года (Заключена в г. Нью-Йорке 30.03.1961 [Электронный ресурс] URL: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_135628/
5. Конвенция о психотропных веществах (г. Вена 21.02.1971) [Электронный ресурс] URL: http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_121091/
6. Конвенция Организации Объединенных Наций о борьбе против незаконного оборота наркотических средств и психотропных веществ [Электронный ресурс] URL: https://docs.cntd.ru/document/1900535
7. Заявление президента Маттареллы по случаю Международного дня борьбы с незаконным употреблением наркотиков и незаконным оборотом наркотиков [Электронный ресурс] URL: https://www.quirinale.it/elementi/30591
Звилинская В.М.
студентка 3 курса ФНО СПО Крымский филиал ФГБОУВО «РГУП»
Научный руководитель: Коган Ю.Н., к.п.н., доцент, доцент кафедры иностранных языков Крымского филиала ФГБОУВО ««РГУП»»
ИСТОРИКО-ПРАВОВЫЕ АСПЕКТЫ ПРОТИВОДЕЙСТВИЯ НЕЗАКОННОМУ ОБОРОТУ НАРКОТИЧЕСКИХ СРЕДСТВ В ТАИЛАНДЕ
Аннотация: В предлагаемой работе освещены основные законодательные акты Таиланда и их эффективность в сфере противодействия незаконному обороту наркотических средств. Рассмотрен законодательный проект «Война с наркотиками», социальные и политические последствия его реализации в стране. Изучены вопросы политической ситуации Таиланда в сфере противодействия незаконному обороту наркотических средств, вопрос легализации марихуаны в стране, его законодательная база. Предложены возможные векторы либерального развития страны в сфере противодействия незаконному обороту наркотических средств.
Ключевые слова: законодательство Таиланда, незаконный оборот наркотических веществ, «Война с наркотиками», реабилитация наркозависимых, Управление Организации Объединенных Наций по наркотикам и преступности, легализация марихуаны, Управление Комитета по контролю над наркотиками.
HISTORICAL AND LEGAL ASPECTS OF COUNTERING ILLICIT DRUG TRAFFICKING IN
THAILAND
Abstract: The proposed paper highlights the main legislative acts of Thailand and their effectiveness in countering illicit drug trafficking. The legislative project "War on Drugs", social and political consequences of its implementation in the country are considered. The issues of the political situation in Thailand in the field of countering illicit drug trafficking, the issue of legalization of marijuana in the country, its legislative framework have been studied. Possible vectors of liberal development of the country in the field of countering illicit drug trafficking are proposed.
Keywords: Thai legislation, illicit drug trafficking, "War on drugs", rehabilitation of drug addicts, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, legalization of marijuana, Office of the Drug Control Committee.
Substance abuse is a serious problem affecting the social security and stability of society in many countries of the world. Thailand was no exception. This article will analyze the legal acts of Thailand in the field of countering narcotic drugs in a historical context. We will try to comprehensively consider such issues as the emergence of a state apparatus that controls the sphere of illicit drug trafficking; the use of repressive measures as a regulator of order in this area.; changes in the essence of Thailand's political position on narcotic drugs to a more liberal one over time and the change of the country's leading persons and bodies; the creation of a system of bodies that have assumed the authority to rehabilitate people suffering from drug addiction; the legalization of marijuana in Thailand.
The fight against narcotic substances in the kingdom has a long and complicated history. It all started in 1955, when opium - the most dangerous drug at that time - began to attract the attention of the Royal Thai Government and the First resolution of the Cabinet Meeting was issued to ban smoking and the sale of opium. However, this resolution did not have the proper impact and was not taken seriously due to the objections of the Ministry of Finance, which believed that such a measure would adversely affect the economic situation in the country.
Later, in December 1958, the Government of the Revolutionary Party under the leadership of Field Marshal Sarit Tanarat issued the Proclamation of the Revolutionary Party No. 37 prohibiting smoking and the sale of opium throughout the country. This time the approach was much more serious -all the opium found among the citizens was burned under the personal supervision of the field Marshal, and the sale and smoking of opium finally became officially illegal.
Despite the use of such drastic measures, their effectiveness did not meet expectations. Very soon, people found a way out of the situation - to purchase and use morphine and heroin that appeared on the illegal market of Southeast Asian countries at that time. Heroin has become so popular that
clandestine laboratories for its production have even been established in Thailand. It was easy to use it without leaving traces and thus avoid punishment.
The Royal Thai government understood that drugs are one of the main problems of their country and it needs to be solved. That is why, at the Interpol Drug Control meeting held in January 1960 in Lahore, Pakistan, the country adopted a recommendation on the establishment of a drug control authority, acting as a coordinating body for the prevention and suppression of drug use within the country and internationally.
In April 1961, following this recommendation, the Royal Thai Government established the Central Committee on Drugs for the first time. The committee was headed by the Director General of the Police Department, and the council consisted of Deputy Permanent secretaries, directors and representatives of various interested institutions. The Council, in turn, established the Central Bureau for the Fight against Drugs of Thailand, located in the police department. It performed a coordinating function for the suppression and prevention of drug use and other commitments made to foreign countries and international organizations. Various subcommittees have also been set up in each region and region to coordinate the centralized system.
Despite the creation of the competent authority, the Government has not taken care to consolidate its powers legally. No law on the legal status of the Committee has been issued. Thus, every time the government was replaced, the functions of the Central Committee on Drugs ceased to operate, in order to continue working, it was necessary to reorganize with the new government, which took a lot of time and interfered with the stable work of the organization. As a result, the drug problem was not solved, but worsened.
This was the case until the publication of a new law in 1976. It was then that the Drug Control ActB.E. 2519 was passed, [5] which created two new bodies:
1. Committee on Drug Control (NCB);
2. The Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB).
The Committee had overall responsibility for the prevention and suppression of illicit drug use in Thailand, and the Office acted as the national coordinating body for its activities.
In 2002, the Law on the Organization of Ministries, Subordinate Ministries and Departments was issued, according to which the Department was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice as an independent body. This was the end of the reorganization of this body. [4]
Despite the extensive legislative framework regulating the use and sale of drugs, and the presence of several authorized bodies, a situation has arisen, according to the King and the Government of Thailand, requiring radical measures. Thus, King Rama IX of Thailand (Bhumibol Adulyadej) in 2002 noted the growth of drug use in the country and called for a "war on drugs". After discussions on this decision, in 2003, the Government headed by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra announced that the fight against drugs in the country would henceforth be conducted with special determination and all necessary measures would be taken for this. A little later, a plan developed for these purposes, the "War on Drugs", was officially announced. It was headed by the Prime Minister. The main task of the project was to rid the country of drugs in three months.
During the execution of the project, special operations were carried out in the provinces of Thailand, during which members of drug cartels who were engaged in protecting poppy fields and secret trails of their organizations were killed. Government officials in the provinces and in central Thailand were charged with conducting their own investigations to find citizens and organizations involved in the illegal sale of drugs. During the first three months of the project, about two and a half thousand people were killed, which is twice as much as during the normal drug control regime. The policy pursued by the government has borne fruit - the level of drug consumption has decreased due to the increase in prices for their purchase. It can be assumed that the point here is not in the cruelty shown, but in the restriction of the activities of drug cartels, which caused a decrease in the volume of narcotic substances on the market, and, consequently, an increase in the price per unit of goods. [1]
Soon, critics who defended human rights turned their attention to the situation in Thailand. They claimed that most of the people were executed without trial. Trying to rehabilitate himself and protect himself from a wave of condemnations, Thaksin Shinawatra asked the UN Commission on Human Rights to send a special envoy to Thailand to assess the situation in the country. The envoy failed to identify anything illegal. The truth was revealed only in 2006, after the overthrow of the Prime Minister. A special investigation revealed shocking facts of numerous extrajudicial killings:
• About 2,500 people were killed during the sweeps;
• For 1,400 of them, there was no data on their participation in drug trafficking or on their provision of any assistance or assistance to drug dealers and drug couriers. [2]
Many journalists involved in this topic have also been subjected to extrajudicial repression. After this situation, the reputation of the former Prime Minister of Thailand and the country as a whole was seriously damaged. Violation of human rights in the modern world is a mistake that few people forgive.
To date, drug policy in Thailand is striving to improve the country's social indicators and health indicators of citizens. To this end, plans are being developed according to which the Ministry of Internal
Affairs of Thailand and the Bangkok administration will jointly create social rehabilitation centers. They will be created on the basis of criteria determined by the Committee for the Rehabilitation of Drug Addicts in Thailand. "Social rehabilitation" - measures to support people suffering from drug addiction or who have completed drug treatment. Objectives of the creation of such centers:
• Improving the quality of life of dependent and cured people in terms of housing, education, employment;
• Providing support to such people in the process of socialization.
Assistance will be provided in obtaining access to social services and temporary housing in order to enable people to live in a normal society without committing repeated offenses. [7]
Several Thai government agencies will assist the centers:
- Ministry of Social Development and Human Security;
- Ministry of Labor;
- Ministry of Health;
- Office of the Drug Control Committee.
International organizations are also in favor of introducing practices with the active work of rehabilitation centers in Thailand. For example, in April 2022, UNODC held an interagency meeting of high-level officials on the New Thai Drug Code in Bangkok to discuss the status of the Code and the steps to be taken to implement it, focusing on alternatives to imprisonment and lowering the sentencing thresholds. As a result of the meeting, it was agreed that UNODC would provide technical support to Thailand in developing evidence-based policies in line with international human rights principles, promoting respect for human rights through all drug-related programs and services. [9]
The next thing worth mentioning is the legalization of cannabis in Thailand. It all started in 2018, when a legislative project was developed to study the effect of medicinal marijuana on the human body and the Cabinet of Ministers of the country approved it. [3] Then, in the 2019 elections to the House of Representatives, Anutin Charnvirakul, one of the candidates, announced that the legalization of marijuana was the main direction of his party's political activity. In 2020, he became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Health of Thailand. In 2022, Anutin Charnvirakul developed a new draft Law on the Decriminalization of marijuana in Thailand. The Act came into force in June 2022. [6] Thus, Thailand became the first Southeast Asian country to officially legalize the use and sale of cannabis for medical purposes. There were several reasons for the adoption of such a law:
1) Political - as mentioned above, the Minister's position on marijuana was announced quite a long time ago, and it was done for a reason. The Deputy Prime Minister's party is located in the poor rural northeast of Thailand, and this policy appealed to farmers who saw an opportunity to increase their income by growing and selling cannabis. Soon, thanks to their votes, Anutin Charnvirakul's party won a seat in the House of Representatives;
2) Economic - the marijuana business can bring the country $ 10 billion over the next three years, and even more if it becomes popular among tourists to come to Thailand for treatment using marijuana extracts. [8] The Minister of Public Health of Thailand has already opened the first specialized clinic in Bangkok;
3) Social - the Thai government no longer wants to pursue a cruel policy against people who use drugs. At the same time, before the adoption of the aforementioned law, three quarters of Thai prisoners were serving sentences for drug-related crimes, many of which are minor. It should be mentioned that Thailand's prisons attract a lot of attention from human rights critics. The conditions in which prisoners are held are incredibly cruel. Even guilty people should not live in inhumane conditions. Since the law came into force, more than 4,000 people accused of using cannabis have been released.
Currently, marijuana is allowed only as a medicinal product and is sold exclusively by prescription, it is prohibited to use it for recreational purposes.
Summarizing the material, we have studied in the field of legislative regulation of the use and sale of narcotic drugs in Thailand, we believe that the appropriate solution will be to continue the development of the country in the following areas:
1. Bringing the legislation in the field of narcotic drugs into a structured system and abolishing the legal force of outdated laws;
2. Construction of rehabilitation centers for people suffering from drug addiction;
3. The use of marijuana exclusively for medical purposes;
4. Protection of human rights through membership in international organizations;
5. Maintaining order in the country by applying liberal methods of legal regulation.
Considering all of the above, we can note that substance abuse is one of the most acute problems
threatening the social security of Thailand. In the course of the work, an analysis of Thailand's legal acts in the field of narcotic drugs was carried out in a historical context, which showed that the country's legislative framework regulating this area is very extensive, but has not been formed for a long time, as a result of which it is not able to cover all the necessary volume of issues related to narcotic substances. Considering the issues we have studied privately, we can say that at the stage of the emergence of the
state apparatus controlling the sphere of illicit drug trafficking, the Thai government authorities made a mistake in assessing the scale of the problem, which subsequently led to an aggravation of the situation with the use and sale of opium. At the moment, the country's policy on narcotic substances is becoming more and more liberal, which is reflected, among other things, in the creation of a system of bodies that have assumed the authority to rehabilitate people suffering from drug addiction. This new policy provides Thai citizens who find themselves in prison for drug use with the opportunity to restore their former life and social status. The last and most controversial aspect of the topic we have examined is the legalization of marijuana in the kingdom. It should be clarified that we are talking about the abolition of the ban on the sale and use of marijuana exclusively for medicinal purposes. According to the authors, the improvement of methods of treatment of certain diseases, which does not harm the human body, only benefits society.
Thus, a retrospective analysis of the existing legal framework of Thailand in the field of countering illicit drug trafficking allows us to say with confidence that at the moment the country has chosen a different path of development. A path that can lead Thailand to social stability and security of society.
Пристатейный библиографический список:
1. A chronology of Thailand's "War on drugs": [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://www.humanrights.asia/resources/journals-magazines/article2/special-report-extrajudicial-killings-of-alleged-drug-dealers-in-thailand/a-chronology-of-thailands-war-on-drugs/. Дата обращения: 25.11.2022 г.
2. A Wave of Drug Killings Is Linked to Thai Police: [Электронный ресурс]. URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/08/world/a-wave-of-drug-killings-is-linked-to-thai-police.html. Дата обращения: 25.11.2022 г.
3. Medical marijuana trials to start soon: [Электронный ресурс]. URL: https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1546686/medical-marijuana-trials-to-start-soon. Дата обращения: 25.11.2022 г.
4. Office of the Narcotics Control Board: Ministry of justice: [Электронный ресурс]. URL: https://www.oncb.go.th/EN_ONCB/Pages/background.aspx. Дата обращения: 25.11.2022 г.
5. Office of the Narcotics Control Board. Ministry of Justice. Narcotic Laws of Thailand: [Электронный ресурс]. URL: https://forum.awd.ru/files/30/10/3215_3ba952d6997dea64e40c07bbc4b18cbc.pdf. Дата обращения: 25.11.2022 г.
6. Thailand cannabis: From a war on drugs to weed curries: [Электронный ресурс]. URL: https://www.bbc.com/news/61836019. Дата обращения: 25.11.2022 г.
7. Thailand reforms drug laws to reduce impacts of criminal justice system: [Электронный ресурс]. URL: https://idpc.net/blog/2021/12/thailand-reforms-drug-laws-to-reduce-impacts-of-criminal-justice-system. Дата обращения: 25.11.2022 г.
8. Thailand, Malaysia to legalize medical cannabis: [Электронный ресурс]. URL: https://www.thestrategist.media/Thailand-Malaysia-to-legalize-medical-cannabis_a3309.html. Дата обращения: 25.11.2022 г.
9. United Nation. Thai agencies and UNODC discuss the future of new Narcotics Code: [Электронный ресурс]. URL: https://www.unodc.org/roseap/2022/04/thailand-new-narcotics-code/story.html. Дата обращения: 25.11.2022 г.
