An analysis of the United Nations' Response to Drug Supply in Its Documents and Conventions

Throughout the world, drug trafficking was considered legal until the nineteenth century. Early in the twentieth century, the international community became aware of the destructive power of these materials in human societies, witnessing the first massive efforts to restrict the purchase and sale of narcotics in the world. Subsequently, and before the United Nations was formed, several other international conventions were concluded in the field of counter-narcotics. With the formation of the United Nations in 1945, the process of counter-narcotics has become more coherent, the main feature of which is the fight against the supply of narcotics. In this article, the authors by using the method of library research try to answer the question that which approaches the United Nations has adopted since its inception to fight against narcotics and what are their main components. By reviewing and analyzing the UN conventions, documents, and resolutions in the field of counter-narcotics, the authors conclude that the United Nations' approach until the 1980s was a violent, rigorous approach which was focused on the supply-side. After this decade, the United Nations' approach has slowly shifted away from this approach to adopt an approach which is focused on the demand-side.