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The international drug control regime, built on three conventions (1961, 1971, and 1988), prohibits non-medical drug production and use while ensuring access for medical purposes. Despite nearly universal ratification and efforts focused on demand and supply reduction, the illegal drug market has expanded, with drug use increasing by 20% and problematic use by 45% in just a decade. Challenges such as synthetic drug crises, the legalization of non-medical cannabis in some regions, and new trafficking methods like dark web markets have highlighted tensions within the regime and its limits in meeting key objectives. This book examines the framework’s legal foundations, implementation, and historical context, alongside emerging tensions and their impact on global norms related to health, development, and human rights. It explores whether the regime remains fit for purpose or requires reform, assessing existing pathways for change and the implications of maintaining the status quo or of reforming. Offering critical insights for policymakers, academics, and communities, International Drug Control Law provides a timely and comprehensive analysis of the modernization of global drug policy in a rapidly shifting landscape.
A critical examination of the international drug control regime, its legal foundations, growing tensions, and existing calls for reform in an era of emerging challenges such as synthetic drugs and cannabis legalization..
“At a moment of growing debate about the future of drug policy, Khalid Tinasti offers a careful, historically grounded account that avoids easy answers and instead provides the perspective needed for informed dialogue.” — José M. Zuniga, President & CEO, Fast- Track Health
“Tinasti provides a clear and lucid account of the international drug control system. Unquestionably drugs remain a key global issue and this work serves as an important contribution to the literature on drug control's evolution and development.” — Mark Shaw, Director, Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime
“Drawing on both scholarly depth and direct experience in international forums, Tinasti brings rare and valuable insights into the diplomacy of drug policy, illuminating the tensions and compromises that continue to shape one of the world’s most contested legal regimes.” — Julia Buxton, British Academy Global Professor, Liverpool John Moores University
Khalid Tinasti is a research associate at the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding and visiting lecturer at the Geneva Graduate Institute, and a David F. Musto Visiting Scholar at the International Centre for Drug Policy Studies at Shanghai University.