Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1incb030408.html
UNITED NATIONS, March 4 -- While celebrity drug use is the hook to the UN's International Narcotics Control Board's new annual report, INCB's analysis of disparities in sentencing dodges issues that impact many more people, for example the racial disparate sentences imposed on users of powder versus crack cocaine. Inner City Press asked INCA board member, and former U.S. Ambassador to Bulgaria Melvyn Levitsky about this, and he responded that the UN's INCB "doesn't try to dictate" countries' sentencing schemes. But the INCB report pointedly recommends that high-profile drug users not be coddled. Why not recommend that racial minorities not be disproportionately imprisoned for their use of one form of cocaine rather than another?
Levitsky's responses at the report's launch at UN Headquarters were more detailed than is usual the case. Asked by Inner City Press about the INCB's missions to Bolivia and elsewhere, Levitsky criticized Bolivia for not yet banning the use of coca for traditional purposes. Of the decline to zero of opium production during the last year of Taliban control, Levitsky said this was attributable to the Taliban trying to drive up the price of heroin. The basis of this convenient theory wasn't disclosed -- a stray page of laptop found in a cave at Tora Bora, perhaps. At the University of Michigan, Levitsky teaches a class on Drugs, Crime and Terrorism, which he made a point of saying, including online, is called Drugs & Thugs.
Levitsky also seemed to parrot the Bush administration line when he referred off-handedly to the "shady area of harm reduction" and needle exchange. What' so shady? Particularly when the UN itself is on record as prioritizing stopping the spread of HIV / AIDS?
Levitsky said that INCB recommends that central governments assert more control over their territory, to control drugs. Inner City Press asked if this is the UN's recommendation with respect to Myanmar, where those with "close ties to the military regime" are subject to sanctions for involvement in the heroin trade. While Levitsky cited back to Shan and Ha warlords, he did not answer on current government involvement. He acknowledged that anti-drug and human rights imperatives could sometimes be at odds. That's a start.
