CSTO’s common approaches to registration of psychoactive substances will help in the fight against the drug threat

Recommendations on the Establishment of Uniform Approaches of the CSTO Member States to the State Registration of New Psychoactive Substances were adopted at the CSTO PA plenary session on November 30, 2020.
Recommendations on the Establishment of Uniform Approaches of the CSTO Member States to the State Registration of New Psychoactive Substances (hereinafter referred to as the Recommendations) were developed in accordance with the 2016–2020 CSTO PA Action Plan on Approximation and Harmonization of National Legislation of the CSTO Member States. The Recommendations were prepared due to the need to harmonize the legislation of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (hereinafter referred to as the CSTO) Member States in the area of combating the spread of new substances that have a narcotic effect on the human body.
The need for this work is illustrated by the fact that, according to the 2015 report of the International Narcotics Control Board, as of October 2015, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Early Warning Advisory on new psychoactive substances, which provides information on new psychoactive substances reported by states, contained data on 602 specific substances. That is a 55 percent increase over the 388 new substances reported in October 2014.
The annual emergence of new psychoactive substances that are not under control and are becoming, or threaten to become, substances of abuse, demonstrates the need for a legal framework that facilitates prompt establishment of control over the trafficking of such substances and approaches to harmonizing the legislation of CSTO Member States in this area.
The main legal basis for CSTO Member States to combat illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances is the Model Law On Narcotic Drugs, Psychotropic Substances and Their Precursors, adopted at the 27th plenary session of the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on November 16, 2006; it provides for classifying new psychoactive substances as analogues of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.
However, with the emergence of a large number of new psychoactive substances that, through a slight change in their chemical formula, can be excluded from the list of controlled substances, the long procedure of classifying new psychoactive substances as analogues of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances loses its efficiency.
These recommendations were developed to neutralize such a threat.
They contribute to the implementation of unified approaches to the legal provision and organization of a system of operational control over the emergence of new psychoactive substances.
For this purpose, a detailed analysis of the CSTO Member States’ legislation in these areas was carried out, the available best practices of European countries were used, and as a result the Recommendations on the Establishment of Uniform Approaches of the CSTO Member States to the State Registration of New Psychoactive Substances were created and adopted.