The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is the international treaty
against illicit drug manufacture and trafficking that forms the
bedrock of the global drug control regime. Previous treaties had only
controlled opium, coca, and derivatives such asmorphine and heroin.
The Single Convention, adopted in 1961, consolidated those instruments
and broadened their scope to include cannabis and allow control of any
drugs with similar effects to those specified in the treaty. The
Commission on Narcotic Drugs and the World Health Organization were
empowered to add, remove, and transfer drugs among the treaty's four
Schedules of controlled substances. The International Narcotics
Control Board was put in charge of administering controls on drug
production, international trade, and dispensation. The United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crime was delegated the Board's day-to-day work of
monitoring the situation in each country and working with national
authorities to ensure compliance with the Single Convention. This
treaty has since been supplemented by the Convention on Psychotropic
Substances, which controls LSD, ecstasy, and other mind-altering
pharmaceuticals, and the Convention Against Illicit Traffic in
Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, which strengthens
provisions against money laundering and other drug-related offenses.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_Drugs
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1252:
Pope Innocent IV issued the papal bull ad extirpanda, authorizing the
use of torture on heretics during the Medieval Inquisition.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Inquisition)
1756:
Seven Years' War: Britain declared war on France, two years after
fighting began in Ohio.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Years%27_War)
1928:
Cartoon characters Mickey and Minnie Mouse made their movie debut in
Plane Crazy.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mouse)
1934:
Prime Minister K?rlis Ulmanis dissolved the Saeima and established an
authoritarian rule in Latvia.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlis_Ulmanis)
1990:
The Portrait of Doctor Gachet by Vincent van Gogh was sold for US$82.5
million, at the time the world's most expensive painting.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Doctor_Gachet)
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Wikiquote of the day:
"Things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. So I
believe that dreams— daydreams, you know, with your eyes wide open
and your brain machinery whizzing— are likely to lead to the
betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the
imaginative man or woman most apt to invent, and therefore to foster,
civilization." -- L. Frank Baum
(
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/L._Frank_Baum)