UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs

Dear Delegates,

My name is Sydney Sawyier and I will be directing the Commission on Narcotic Drugs at HNMUN 2011. I look forward to hearing your lively debate on two contentious and incumbent topics that have not gotten enough attention in international discourse. While the Commission on Narcotic Drugs has only occasionally made appearances at HNMUN, I expect the performance of this year’s committee to be thought-provoking, fun, and memorable.

Born and raised in Chicago, IL, I am a diehard White Sox fan and Midwest enthusiast. I am a rising sophomore and will be a resident of the ever-spirited Pforzheimer House for the next three years. I am tentatively a History and Literature concentrator focusing on Postcolonial Studies and with a regional focus on French West Africa. As far as a secondary, I am considering anything ranging from Philosophy to African Studies to Physics. We will see how it goes.

Apart from my academic interests, I am an avid ballroom dancer, musician, and figure skater. I am a member of the Harvard Ballroom Dance Team and part of the executive leadership serving as the team’s Assistant Chief Financial Officer. I love to play both violin and piano and I am a violinist in several chamber music groups on campus as well as in the Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra. Last of all, I have figure-skated since I was about four years old and continue to do so today in the Harvard Figure Skating Club. In my free time I adore reading (fiction and the New Yorker being my favorites), listening to music of all sorts and obscurity, writing, politics, eating, running, playing just about any sport with a racket, lamenting the non-existence of a Harvard Independents Club, watching movies, and appreciating the visual arts.

I chose these two topics, the Middle Eastern Opiate Trade and Exploring Policy Options in terms of Regional Drug Trafficking, not just out of my own passion for them, but also their extreme relevance and the minimal involvement that the international community has had in addressing them in the past. That said; I have every confidence that your debate and resolution will lay the foundations for productive and effectual dialogue on these issues and I look forward to seeing you all in action! Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns – I am happy to give you all the feedback and support you need to maximize your understanding of these two topics!

Sincerely,

Sydney Sawyier
Director, UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs
Harvard National Model United Nations 2011

Topic Area A: Middle Eastern Opiate Trade

Almost all of the world’s opiates derive from the Middle East. Some figures say that as much as 90% of the world’s opium travels through Afghanistan alone. Contrary to global trends in drug seizures, opiate seizure remained the same or decreased in 2008 and 2009 as regional instability, increased production, and other factors have allowed the Middle Eastern opiate trade to flourish with little regional governmental cooperation to prevent this from happening.

The role of conflict in perpetuating the drug trade complicates this issue and makes it all the more relevant for the international community to address. The War in Afghanistan is particularly relevant to this debate – the fall of the Taliban and further destabilization of the region was also marked by a sharp increase in opium-producing poppy field acreage – and now both American troops and Taliban insurgents are vying for influence over Afghanistan’s rural, opium-producing population. There are several questions that the Commission on Narcotic Drugs must address as it confronts this booming trade: How does the trade affect political stability in the region? What role does regional conflict play in exacerbating the trade? How can the trade be curbed? In light of the regional instability, what role can regional alliances and the international community play in undermining this trade? The Commission on Narcotic Drugs also must keep in mind that their debate and resolution on this matter will set a precedent for how the international community should deal with drug trafficking in zones of conflict.

Topic Area B: Regional Drug Trafficking: International Policy Options

The global drug trade operates at its strongest at the regional level. While most governments have developed their own legal frameworks for combating drug trafficking within and across their borders, the degree to which this isolated, unilateral approach has been successful is questionable to say the least. In the case of the Americas, unilateral drug policy enforcement has damaged regional political dynamics, undermined human rights, and been largely ineffective in dealing with recent circumstances such as the ongoing Drug War in Mexico. Eastern Africa has become a hub for global drug trafficking as the legal infrastructure has not been equipped to deal with building cases against drug traffickers, law enforcement with the sheer volume of drug flow, and border, airport, and port security is minimal, making East Africa a crucial link in the intercontinental drug trade.

What these two examples show is the urgent the need for the international community to focus on building regional frameworks and cooperation as a strategy for combating the drug trade. Delegates would be expected to analyze the benefits and/or effectiveness of a regional approach, consider policy options, and as in the other topic, set a precedent for successful regional cooperation in curbing the drug trade.