I. Report of the sixth session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs
II. Report of the United Nations Commission of Enquiry on the Coca Leaf
Pages: 53 to 54
Creation Date: 1951/01/01
There were two items on the agenda of the Economic and Social Council relating to narcotics:
Report of the sixth session of the Commission on, Narcotic Drugs;
Report of the United Nations Commission of Enquiry on the Coca Leaf.
Acting on the recommendation of its Committee of the Agenda, the Economic and Social Council referred at its meeting of 30 July 1951 to the Social Committee the two items on narcotics without preliminary discussion in plenary meeting of the Council.
On 3 August 1951, the Social Committee examined the draft resolution on the principles of the proposed protocol relating to the limitation of production of opium which the Commission on Narcotic Drugs had recommended to the Council for adoption. This draft resolution endorsed generally the principles of the protocol, requested the Secretary-General to submit them to the governments for their observations and decided to study at an early session, in the light of these observations, the possibility of convening an international conference with the view of preparing and adopting that protocol. The Social Committee weighed the respective merits of this proposed protocol and of an opium monopoly and considered the advisability of transmitting to the governments, both the draft protocol and the draft of the interim agreement for their observations.
The Committee then considered three amendments to the draft resolution which were submitted by the representative of the United States of America and a joint draft resolution proposed by the representatives of Belgium, Chile, and China, which requested the Secretary General to transmit the draft interim agreement, together with the summary records of the debates of the Social Committee relating thereto, to the governments for their observations and asked him to prepare a compendium of these observations for the Council to consider at the same time as it would consider the governmental observations on the protocol.
The first of these amendments, proposing to replace the word "Adopts" by "Notes", in paragraph 1 of the resolution, was adopted by 15 votes and 3 abstentions.
The second amendment, after modification, specified that the principles of the protocol should be communicated to the governments for their observations before 1 November 1951, so that a compendium of these observations could be prepared and the protocol drafted in legal form and presented to the Council for consideration in 1952. It was adopted by 15 votes to 3.
In the first part of the third amendment, "an early session" was replaced in paragraph 3 of the draft resolution by "in 1952". This was also adopted by 15 votes to 3. The second part specified that the study of the possibility of convening an international conference would be made in the light, not only of observations received from governments, but also "of the Draft Protocol presented", and was again adopted by 15 votes to 3.
The draft resolution, modified by a proposal of the United Kingdom representative, was adopted by 13 votes and 5 abstentions.
The Social Committee studied also the joint draft resolution mentioned above, which was approved, after it had been amended (French proposal) to include the summary records of the sixth session of the Commission and of the thirteenth session of the Council, by 15 votes to 2, with one abstention.
Another resolution which the Report of the Commission recommended for adoption by the Council. dealing with education and propaganda against the use of narcotic drugs, was, on the proposal of the representative of the United States of America, not adopted.
The Social Committee then decided, by 15 votes with 2 abstentions, to submit its Report for the sixth session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs to the Social and53
Economic Council. This report, and the three draft resolutions adopted by the Social Committee, were then adopted by the Council, which, on the proposal of the French representative, also decided unanimously to take no action in the matter of education and propaganda.
The Social Committee also considered the Report of the Commission of Enquiry on the Coca Leaf, and discussed a draft resolution from the Commission on Narcotic Drugs suggesting ( a) that the Council express its appreciation to the Commission of Enquiry for the work accomplished; ( b) that it decide to forward the report, together with additional observations of the Commission,to the Governments of Bolivia and Peru, with an invitation for their comments which should be transmitted to the Secretary-General before 15 September 1951 (on intervention of the representative of Peru this date was changed to 1 December 1951); ( c) that the Commission on Narcotic Drugs examine the problem at its seventh session.
This draft resolution, with the date amended as mentioned above, was adopted by 14 votes and 3 abstentions
A request of the World Federation of Trade Unions to make a statement to the Social Committee on the question was rejected by the Council Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations.
The report of the Social Committee together with its draft resolution, were adopted by the Economic and Social Council by 14 votes and 3 abstentions.