For information only - not an official document
UNIS/NAR/1351
9 May 2018
VIENNA, 9 May (UN Information Service) - The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) is holding its 122nd session in Vienna and has renewed the mandate of its President, Viroj Sumyai, and elected a new Bureau for a one-year term.
In the course of its two-week session, which began on 7 May and will continue until 18 May, the Board will evaluate the compliance of over two hundred countries and territories with the three international drug control conventions.
As part of its ongoing cooperation with Member States, the Board will review the functioning of the international drug control system, examine drug control implementation at the national level and discuss actions to propose to Governments to enhance the operation of their national drug control systems.
More specifically, INCB will analyse the movement of narcotics drugs, psychotropic substances and precursor chemicals for licit requirements, and the supply of opiate raw materials and demand for opiates for medical and scientific purposes.
As part of its mandate to ensure that people have access to the medicines they require for the health treatments and prevent diversion of controlled substances to illicit channels and abuse, the Board's Standing Committee on Estimates will examine national estimates of requirements for narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances for medical and scientific purposes. The Board will also review the annual legitimate requirements of precursors for licit industrial use submitted by governments for those chemicals that are frequently subject to diversion to the illicit manufacture of drugs. In addition, the Board will consider the latest developments concerning new psychoactive substances and synthetic opioids, such as fentanyls and fentanyl analogues that have contributed to the drug overdose epidemic in North America. In this context, INCB will consider measures to counteract the threat these substances pose to public health.
During this session, the Board will hold consultations with the President of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Chair of the Commission on Narcotics Drugs (CND), and senior officials of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Consultations with the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) took place on Tuesday.
The composition of the INCB Bureau following the 8 May elections:
• Viroj Sumyai - President of the Board
• Jallal Toufiq - First Vice-President
• Wei Hao - Second Vice-President of the Board and Chair of the Standing Committee on Estimates
• Bernard Leroy - Rapporteur
Officers elected by the Board:
• Jagjit Pavadia - Vice-Chair of the Standing Committee on Estimates
• David T. Johnson - Chair of the Committee on Finance and Administration
• Cornelis P. de Joncheere - Member of the Standing Committee on Estimates and Member of the Committee on Finance and Administration
• Galina A. Korchagina - Member of the Standing Committee on Estimates
• Raúl Martín del Campo Sánchez - Member of the Standing Committee on Estimates
• Francisco E. Thoumi - Member of the Standing Committee on Estimates and Member of the Committee on Finance and Administration
• Luis A. Otárola Peñaranda - Member of the Standing Committee on Estimates
• H. H. Sevil Atasoy - Member of the Committee on Finance and Administration
Further biographical details as well as information on the functions, work and reports of the International Narcotics Control Board are available at www.incb.org.
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The Vienna-based International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) is an independent body, established by the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, mandated to monitor and support governments' compliance with the three international drug control treaties. Its 13 members are elected by the Economic and Social Council to serve in their individual capacities for a term of five years.
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For further information, please contact:
INCB Secretariat
Tel.: (+43-1) 26060-4163
Email: secretariat[at]incb.org
www.incb.org
