Recommendations made by the 43rd WHO Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD) were presented to the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), a drug policy making body of the UN comprising of 53 Member States, on 4th December 2020.
The 43rd ECDD convened from 12-16 October 2020 to consider whether 11 New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) present significant harms to public health that would warrant their placement under international control.
The Committee recommended 8 NPS be placed under international control. This included isotonitazene, a powerful synthetic opioid that has recently emerged on the illicit drug market that has been associated with a high number of opioid overdose deaths. The Committee also recommended that 3 synthetic benzodiazepine drugs, clonazolam, flubromazolam, and diclazepam be placed under international control as psychotropic substances. These three benzodiazepines are sometimes sold as falsified pharmaceutical benzodiazepines and have been associated with deaths and sometimes have been used in drug-facilitated sexual assault cases.
The 43rd ECDD’s recommendations will be considered for a vote by the 64th CND in April 2021. If the CND accepts the WHO ECDD’s recommendations, these synthetic drugs will be placed under international control and therefore countries will be subject to apply regulations to these substances according to international conventions.
Recommendations made by the 43rd ECDD have been endorsed by the WHO Director-General and communicated to the UN Secretary-General and the CND.
The full correspondence, including the Committee’s recommendations and rationale, can be found here.
Full technical reports on the substances under review can be found here.
The final meeting report will also be published as part of a WHO Technical Report Series.