This special issue of the Bulletin on Narcotics is concerned with sentencing policies for persons convicted of drug-related offences. The international community has, for a number of years, been aware that effective drug abuse control entails the development of national policies which, inter alia, provide for adequate punishment of offenders involved in drug-related crime. Appropriate penal provisions of national drug control laws and their effective enforcement can substantially help to counter drug trafficking and abuse. An appropriately informed and administered judiciary today attempts to apply legal sanctions both to the drug offence and to the individual in order to achieve far-reaching remedial impact. Current experience, however, indicates that major drug traffickers can only be immobilized through imprisonment and forfeiture of the proceeds of their crimes. These measures are necessary to ensure that drug traffickers and their financial backers are prevented from using their illegally acquired assets from drug crimes to expand their trafficking operations, to support other criminal activity by their associates who remain at liberty, or to facilitate their illegal operations by investing such illegal gains in legitimate businesses.
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Creation Date: 1984/01/01
This special issue of the Bulletin on Narcotics is concerned with sentencing policies for persons convicted of drug-related offences. The international community has, for a number of years, been aware that effective drug abuse control entails the development of national policies which, inter alia, provide for adequate punishment of offenders involved in drug-related crime. Appropriate penal provisions of national drug control laws and their effective enforcement can substantially help to counter drug trafficking and abuse. An appropriately informed and administered judiciary today attempts to apply legal sanctions both to the drug offence and to the individual in order to achieve far-reaching remedial impact. Current experience, however, indicates that major drug traffickers can only be immobilized through imprisonment and forfeiture of the proceeds of their crimes. These measures are necessary to ensure that drug traffickers and their financial backers are prevented from using their illegally acquired assets from drug crimes to expand their trafficking operations, to support other criminal activity by their associates who remain at liberty, or to facilitate their illegal operations by investing such illegal gains in legitimate businesses.
The international drug control treaties set out provisions binding the States Parties to adopt appropriate legislation within the limits of their jurisdictions and to introduce the necessary administrative and enforcement measures to ensure adequate punishment for serious drug offences. In pursuance of those provisions and of policy measures to promote national legislations under the International Drug Abuse Control Strategy adopted by the General Assembly in its resolution 36/168 of 16 December 1981, the Division of Narcotic Drugs has prepared this special issue of the Bulletin on Narcotics. The issue includes six articles setting forth relevant national experience relating to sentencing practices and policies followed in drug offence cases, and two additional articles, one summarizing information on the subject derived from the work of the United Nations crime prevention and criminal justice programme, and the other presenting the conclusions of a special study carried out by the United Nations Social Defence Research Institute.