WHO Guidelines On Controlled Drugs

The World Health Organization has begun distributing model guidelinesto its member states to facilitate donations of essential drugs containing narcotic or psychotropic substances to treat victims of disasters.

The guidelines will help national authorities simplify regulatory procedures for such donations, which currently make fast international transport of controlled drugs to emergency sites virtually impossible. They will allow selected suppliers of controlled drugs to make international shipments without prior export/import authorizations. Such shipment supplies are currently seen by control authorities as "exportation" requiring prior import documents from the recipient country. The WHO says this often takes too long to meet the urgent needs of relief work. As a result, all humanitarian aid agencies have abandoned the provision of narcotic drugs in their emergency medical supplies.

The new guidelines were drafted at a consultation convened by the WHO in September 1996 in Geneva. They were approved at the eighth International Consultation of Drug Regulatory Authorities in Bahrain in November 1996, which recommended their trial implementation.