Talk:United Nations drug control conventions

Issues with attribution and verifiability

Copied from a message left on the user talk page of Tsavage

Hi, can you please explain why you created a new page and filled it with {{citation needed}} tags? Since you are the creator of the page, you should be able to provide a source for your statements. Remember that per WP:BURDEN, The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Broc (talk) 08:50, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

|| can you please explain why you created a new page and filled it with {{citation needed}} tags?

I created the page as a stub, not as a fully-formed new article, in the hope that editors who saw the positioning of this article in the overall war on drugs/international drug control/UN treaties context would contribute to it. To give it a bit of framework, I included the three treaties in question, and adapted some content from each of those articles .I added the "citation needed" tags for the convenience of any reader who might be tempted to make a relatively minor improvement, and with the intention of correcting those deficiencies myself shortly.

This is a stub: if there's nothing that seems urgently problematic, maybe give it a day or two to see what the creator of a new page, or others, might continue on with?

WP:BURDEN does say: "Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references. Consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step." -- Tsavage (talk) 17:37, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

@Tsavage Please note that, at the time I wrote the first message, there was no evidence of active improvement of the page nor the page was tagged with {{WIP}}. While I agree that new pages are undergoing significant changes in the first few days, I do not fully understand the reasoning behind adding "citation needed" tags yourself (WP:BURDEN refers to other editors adding such tags, not the author) given that the sources are available to you at the time of writing; it is much easier to add them directly instead of adding tags. No need to discuss this any further from my side, as it's after all just a matter of opinion.

Thank you for correctly providing attribution in your latest edit summaries. Broc (talk) 17:45, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

|| I do not fully understand the reasoning behind adding "citation needed" tags yourself (WP:BURDEN refers to other editors adding such tags, not the author) given that the sources are available to you at the time of writing;

As you pointed out, some text was sourced from other WP articles, where there were no citations or "citation needed" tags. As a side note, it's my understanding that citations are not required in order to post text. At times, I might add some copy that summarizes material, when I don't have the sources right at hand, with the intention of adding citations later. In such a case, I'd usually add "citation needed" tags, even though I'd be soon adding the sources.

I think it's worth being clear, as most of WP comes down to matters of opinion. -- Tsavage (talk) 17:57, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I also noticed you copied most of the content from other Wikipedia pages without attribution. This is a violation of Wikipedia's licensing requirements. Please provide attribution as explained in Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. Broc (talk) 08:53, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

See above. It was temporary and more adapting some fairly generic sentences than wholesale copying, though I take your point about including a "copied from" in the edit comment to be thorough. I remedied that in subsequent edits... -- Tsavage (talk) 17:41, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Is this article worth keeping? Duplicata of existing content

Hello! So, first thing, the title is incorrect. Two of the treaties referred to are not "United Nations treaties" as such, only the third is. This is perhaps a nuance for many but has some relevance w.r.t States non member of the UN. So the title ought to be "International drug control conventions" not "UN drug control conventions".

Secondly, it seems that this article covers content already existing in this article: Drug policy#International drug control treaties and also present in each article for each of the 3 Conventions, which are extensive. I wonder why the need of this one? I'd rather have it as a redirection to Drug policy#International drug control treaties.

All the best Teluobir (talk) 10:20, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

@Teluobir what about a merge? Broc (talk) 11:20, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

@Broc I don't think a merge is a good idea or appropriate. Please see my reasoning directly below. -Tsavage (talk) 02:30, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

@Teluobir Considered together, the three UN drug control conventions are the current international regime. There are significant aspects that deal with the regime as whole, rather than the individual conventions, that would seem to qualify this as an article-level topic. Two that I currently have in mind are:

1. Interpretation and non-compliance: For example, the situations in Bolivia, Canada, Netherlands, Portugal, United States, and Uruguay are all significant.
2. Policy change: The current tension between the supply-side "war on drugs" approach (and the labeling of it as a failure) and a demand-side public health and human rights approach, suggests a strong call for reform of the basic prohibitionist approach of the conventions. The road to such change seems fraught. For example, UNGASS 2016, where countries were roughly divided over any significant retreat from strict prohibition.

This article seems like the proper place to cover such issues, not as a subsection of another article.

Drug policy#International drug control doesn't seem like the most logical place for the above. The framing of the Drug policy article is rather vague. The (unsourced) definition in the lead seems arbitrary, focusing mainly on legislation, while mentioning that drug policy is relevant in a variety of situations. The issue of "drug policy" does have other important contexts. For example, corporate drug policy and drug testing have huge societal impacts but aren't considered in that article. The body of the article addresses only national and international law. The Drug policy#Drug policy by country section is uneven, in places out of date, and incomplete as far as significant compliance and interpretation issues with regard to the UN conventions. The "by country" format also seems unlikely to be regularly updated unless certain editors are specifically keeping on top of it. The table of "Former and current international drug control treaties" would seem better located in the Single Convention article, as that treaty consolidated and replaced all previous; going forward the next two conventions are under the UN system and don't have anything directly to do with the pre-Single Convention treaties, but are complementary and supplementary to the Single Convention.

Overall, the "Drug policy" article seems not well framed or focused, with the potential to sprawl if other significant aspects of drug policy were to be introduced. In any case, the UN conventions are not the main focus of that article. This article is clearly focused on the UN-administrated current international drug control regime, which consists of three conventions.

|| the title is incorrect. Two of the treaties referred to are not "United Nations treaties" as such, only the third is.

My understanding is that all three are UN treaties, and the inclusion of "United Nations" only in the title of the third treaty is a naming convention matter. From a UN source: "Three drug control conventions were adopted under the auspices of the United Nations."[1] There are redirects to here from "UN drug control conventions" and "International drug control conventions"; all three ways are what I've seen used in sources. It's not a proper name, only a common reference; I haven't found an official title for the three conventions together and don't believe one exists.

That's my view. Please correct me if I'm wrong in any of the above. --Tsavage (talk) 01:13, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for these arguments. I think a merge could be a way forwards but, again, not sure anybody has the time and energyu to do that merge, without losing information in the process. Hopefully someone does.

@Tsavage to address your points:

• "Considered together, …":
  • Treaties are stand alone pieces of law, international law has specificities that we can't just ignore for the purpose of simplicity. The fact that these three treaties create the current body of law is an information, but TMHO far less important that the fact that these treaties have different status of ratification, different applications, reservations, and in practice represent a fairly different set of rules for each and every country. Rules that are used to craft national drug policies. Here we get back to "drug policy"/subsection on treaties. However, the existence of a page for the concept grouping the three conventions is not absurd, but it should certainly not be so extensive and should only be here to point out at an expression used to refer to the three treaties altogether. The bulk of the information has to be on the page of each of these treaties. A good comparison is the concept of "International bill of human rights" and I invite you to compare this article with each of the respective 3 pieces of IL that are referenced by this name.
  • Also, depending on what & where we are discussing, international drug law is not only framed by these 3 Conventions, there are also the UN Charter, international human rights law, as well as other treaties some of which are listed here: Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs#Related treaties
• "Interpretation and non-compliance" –– This is only relevant in the case of interpretation of provisions related to cannabis and/opr other drugs used for recreational/adult use/non-medical use. There is already a page (which I think may also not deserve to exist stand alone, but it's bee there for a while) dealing just with that: Cannabis and international law. Taking this page, each treaty's page, and the drug policy page, I don't think this new additional article adds much to the discussion.
• "Policy change" yes but that doesn't justify an article. There are already articles, namely this, this, and this, addressing these issues. There are also specific articles addressing specific policy changes, like Removal of cannabis and cannabis resin from Schedule IV of the Single Convention on narcotic drugs, 1961. I really don't see the interest of this additional article serving just to criticise the treaties. Additionally, these criticisms of the treaties are very close to criticism of national war on drug policies, and intertwinned. In this respect it seems to me much more relevant to address both these treaties and their criticism within the Drug Policy page and as a discussion which would be more honest by encompassing both approaches ––the classical destructive prohibition approach and its criticisms.
• On Drug Policy not being the right place for these contents. Your points are correct: the article is uneven, in places out of date, and incomplete". But these words to me sound like a call to improve the article "Drug Policy" (including by merging probably this new page onto the subsection on treaties) rather than depleting it and abandoning it for its weak points. Not only is "Drug Policy" the actual topic we are discussing, the topic these treaties relate to, and a topic whose existence in real life entirely depends from these treaties… but there is also an entire wikipedia architecture built around the "Drug Policy" name, page, and concept, There are declinations by country, etc etc. For me it makes much more sense to address the poor quality of that Drug Policy page and make it a better vehicle for the important information that is spreading around. This Drug Policy article will remain the first go-to article for basic people researching the internet. It'd be worth our interest in updating and improving it (which I tried to do by bits some years ago already).
• Name–– The name that should be used to refer to these four treaties (three conventions and the amendment of the Single Convention) together with their final acts, is "International drug control conventions" (or IDCC). The official edition of the conventions has this title, and this is the expression used in UNGA and CND resolutions systematically, as well as by other United Nations entities responsible under these treaties, and by non-United Nations treaty bodies as the INCB is. The IDCC is a body of law which has been negotiated hardly and has titles which are extremely significant. As the VCLT invites, we should not attempt to divert from the language agreed by drafters. Drafters decided that the 1961 would be "Single" that the 1971 would just be a Convention (translated as "Covenant" though in Spanish whereas the 1961 is Convention) and they decided the 1988 one would be a "United Nations Convention". These are all significant in international law. I understand that these may seem as useless details to many (and perhaps they are) but detail matters in international law, and these treaties, I believe, should not be referred to as United nations treaties". A United Nations treaty is different from a treaty "adopted under the auspices of the United Nations."
  • In 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit two treaties were open for signature: the UNFCCC and the CBD. The choice to have some treaties be "United Nation ones" and not other should not be just disregarded as it does carry meaning (whereas for instance the choice of "treaty", "convention", "agreement", etc carries less importance)

On another topic–– the desire to make a short article about complex topics leads to some strange formulations, such as "The three treaties are intended to be complementary and mutually supportive". This is not true. The treaties are today seen, and implemented, as such. However, how could the 1961 be "intended" to complement or support the 1988 Convention which did not yet exist at the time. To the contrary, the 1961 Convention was a "Single" one intended to supersede and replace all other drug control treaties. So these sort of short statements are, in my opinion, misleading and confusing.

In my opinion the best option would be by far:

• Work collectively to merge this article onto Drug Policy (the references and additional information not already present in Drug Policy or respective treaty pages),
• Improve Drug Policy,
• Rename the current article as "International Drug Control Conventions" and make it extremely short (one paragraph or two),
• Ideally, it would be great to look at some of the other articles I mentioned in this answer, that are also redundant, often outdated and extremely biased, and have a better structure for the overall international & national drug policy discussion, which are intertwined and inextricable besides their specificities.

Teluobir (talk) 12:51, 12 June 2024 (UTC)