A duty to censor: U.N. officials want to crack down on drug war protesters.

• Author: Coffin, Phillip O.

In a TV ad that aired worldwide in May, a cleaning woman walks down the hall of the United Nations headquarters in New York. As she approaches the globe in the front of the General Assembly's meeting room, the narrator talks about the organization's 20th Special Session: "On June the 8th, leaders from 185 countries will gather in this room for three days to talk about drugs."

The cleaning woman, beginning with her rag on Thailand, spritzes the globe and "wipes it free of drugs." Her rag becomes a squadron of helicopters spraying fields with herbicide. We see images of high-tech radar equipment, drug-sniffing dogs, and flaming drug laboratories, offset by two classroom shots representing anti-drug education. The narrator concludes: "Three days...this room...and a world of good. A drug-free world...we can do it."

The U.N.'s anti-drug apparatus - which includes the Drug Control Program, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, and the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) - seeks to wipe the world free of dissent as well as drugs. The INCB's 1997 report calls for criminalizing opposition to the war on drugs. The nations of the world have not followed through on that recommendation yet, but the spirit behind it has helped prevent a genuine international debate about drug policy.

Based on the 1988 U.N. Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, the INCB claims that all nations are obliged to enact laws that prohibit inciting or inducing people "by any means" to "use narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances illicitly." According to the INCB's report, offenders include anyone who "shows illicit use in a favourable light" or who advocates "a change in the drug law."

The report criticizes "reputable medical journals" for "favouring the 'medical' use of cannabis," since "such information... tends to generate an overall climate of acceptance that is favourable to" illegal drug use. It also attacks the marketing of nonpsychoactive hemp products, such as clothing and foodstuffs, for "contributing to the overall promotion of illicit drugs."

The INCB even suggests that political campaigns based on calls for drug policy reform may be prohibited under international treaties: "Election campaigns have been conducted with candidates standing for parliament on a drug legalization platform. Some of the candidates for the European Parliament stood on such a platform and were successful. Thus, they were able to use their...