Montessori Model United Nations

United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime

Middle School
Sept 2018

Original: English

United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime:

The Commission of Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice

Committee History

United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is a global leader in the fight against illicit drugs and
international crime. Established in 1997 through a merger between the United Nations Drug Control
Programme and the Centre for International Crime Prevention, UNODC operates in all regions of the world
through an extensive network of field offices. UNODC relies on voluntary contributions, mainly from
Governments, for 90 per cent of its budget.

The Commission acts as the governing body of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. It approves
the budget of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Fund, which provides resources for
promoting technical assistance in the field of crime prevention and criminal justice worldwide.

The Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) is part of the Economic and Social
Council (ECOSOC). It focuses on transnational crime and criminal justice. In the early 1990s, the UN
developed a greater interest in criminal justice policy, which led to the creation of the CCPCJ. When the
CCPCJ was created, a similar older committee (called the Committee on Crime Prevention and Control) was
removed. This was done in order to put more focus on the CCPCJ and make sure that UN agencies would
coordinate well with each other.

Preventing the Distribution of Fake Medicines

History
Fake medicine is a major criminal industry, and it is a growing public health crisis around the world. Fake
medicine can include counterfeit, falsified, and substandard medication. Counterfeit and falsified
medication refers to medical products that purposely lie about their identity, composition, or source.
Substandard medicines are legal products, but they have expired, inactive, or low-quality ingredients that
can harm people.

The consumers that unknowingly use these harmful medicines have their health put at risk. The extent of
the negative side-effects from fake medicines can include psychological and physical damage and can
sometimes lead to death. This is because fake medicines often include harmful additives. These additives
can be dangerous on their own, or they might react to other medicines the consumer is using with
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 dangerous side-effects. Additionally, substandard
medications are just as dangerous because they may not
actually treat the illness for which they are intended.
Consumers may not realize this, and their conditions may
become worse as they continue to take the substandard
medicine.

All consumers of pharmaceuticals are equally vulnerable

to the covert operations of fake medicine. However, fake
medicine is significantly more common in developing
countries than developed countries. Additionally,
developing countries may not have healthcare that is
widely available, making it more difficult for fake
medicines to be stopped and prevented. Others may
actually be incentivized to purchase counterfeit and
fraudulent life-saving medications for diseases, such as
malaria, when the legal versions are especially expensive
or hard to find. Meanwhile, in higher-income countries
where there are national regulations, counterfeit
medications are likely be copies of well-known brands
that at least contain some sort of active or alternative
ingredient.

Producers of fake medicine rely on deceptive packaging to trick consumers into believing that they are
acquiring the real product. In the past ten years, pharmaceutical companies that make medicines have
taken steps to develop safeguards and precautions on packaging to prevent fake versions. These
companies have also been adding both visible and concealed security features, such as hologram labels
and brand protection features. When pharmaceutical products cross borders and travel through various
countries and distributors, repackaging often takes place. However, this allows counterfeiters additional
opportunities to forge packaging information and introduce their counterfeit products into supply
channels.

Recent Developments
Organized crime groups have used technology to improve the efficiency of their operations. For example,
criminals can now use online pharmacies as a new way to sell fake medicine to unsuspecting consumers.
Online pharmacies are a relatively new innovation, developed in the 1990s to make getting prescription
drugs more convenient. They also make it possible for people to be independent. If a person has a disease
that makes going out to a pharmacy difficult, an online pharmacy can provide that person with
independence and can even deliver the medicine. However, criminal groups take advantage of this
technology to reach new victims, avoid detection by law enforcement, and undercut prices. As online
pharmacies grew, so too did fraudulent ones, seeking to take advantage of the innovative arrangement of
purchasing prescription medication.

While counterfeits are incredibly profitable for criminal groups, they have a severely negative impact on
pharmaceutical companies. Fake medicines are estimated to cost legitimate pharmaceutical companies an
estimated $46 billion annually in profit. This is largely because of lost sales. This loss also has the effect of
reducing investments into new medicines. Pharmaceutical companies use the profits earned from selling
current medicines to fund their research into new medicines and having such large amounts of lost sales
means there is less money available for this research. Therefore, the problem of counterfeit producers
creates financial difficult for pharmaceutical companies.

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Treaties and Agreements
Currently, the World Health Organization (WHO) is considered the main international organization in the
fight against fake medicine. The WHO plays many roles in this way, such as facilitating collaboration
between countries where fake medicines are being trafficked and leading public campaigns to raise
awareness of the dangers of fake medicine.

There are some regional agreements regarding fake medicine, and they are similar to trade agreements.
For example, many European Countries have signed the MEDICRIME Convention to standardize laws on
the production and transportation of fake medicine. This also creates new ways for countries to
collaborate and communicate about ongoing investigations into various groups. However, given that the
trade of fake medicine is global in nature, these types of agreements struggle to counteract fake medicine
that travels into or out of these specific collaboration regions. This, in turn, has led many people and
pharmaceutical companies to advocate for the adoption of one specific, global convention on fake and
counterfeit medicines.

Guiding Questions
• Who pays for healthcare in your country?
• How readily available is healthcare in your country?
• Which government agency regulates pharmaceuticals in your country? Is this agency effective
at its job?
• Does your country have any regulations in place to prevent the distribution of falsified or
counterfeit medicine?
• Does your country provide any information to its citizens about how to ensure they are buying
legitimate medicines?
• Are there any diseases that are particularly widespread in your country? If so, could these
diseases have an impact on healthcare costs and the presence and distribution of fake
medicine?
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bate, Roger. “The Deadly World of Fake Medicine.” CNN, 17 July 2012. Accessed 20 June 2018.
Excellent article providing an overview of the negative effects of fake medicine on the world.
https://www.cnn.com/2012/07/17/health/living-well/falsified-medicine-bate/index.html.
This article about the dangers of fraudulent and counterfeit medicine explores some of the history behind
terrorist groups and their link to pharmaceutical crimes.
“Growing Threat from Counterfeit Medicines.” World Health Organization. Last modified April 2010.
http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/4/10-020410/en/.
This webpage from the World Health Organization details certain crucial events that led to the recognition
of fraudulent medicine as a major international issue, and it illuminates statistics that aid in the
introduction of the topic.
Council of Europe. “MEDICRIME Convention.” Council of Europe, n.d.
https://www.coe.int/en/web/medicrime/home.
This is the Council of Europe’s website addressing the MEDICRIME Convention, including the text of the
convention and a useful factsheet with a brief overview.
“Pharmaceutical Industry Initiative to Combat Crime.” INTERPOL. https://www.interpol.int/Crime-
areas/Pharmaceutical-crime/Pharmaceutical-Industry-Initiative-to-Combat-Crime.
This webpage from Interpol details information on a partnership between itself and pharmaceutical
companies in order to combat the threat of fraudulent medicine.
“Substandard and Falsified Medical Products.” World Health Organization. Last modified 31 January 2018.
http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/substandard-and-falsified-medical-products.
This webpage from the World Health Organization helps to define some of the terms and key facts pertinent to the issue of
fraudulent medicine, as well as to provide information on ways to identify illegal and unregulated medical products.

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