The international community is preparing for the 2026 Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), which will take place in Vienna from 9–13 March, amid profound geopolitical uncertainty. With overlapping global crises and the UN facing its own internal funding challenges, the meeting is expected to be unusually discordant and complex.

The decade since the 2016 United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS), which focused on the ‘World Drug Problem’, has been characterized by increasingly intricate drug markets and the steady erosion of multilateral consensus. Yet the coming years are likely to be even more consequential, as debates now centre not on how the international drug control system will change, but rather on who will determine the terms.

UNGASS 2016 was a symbolic high point in the ongoing reform efforts within the UN drug control system. When governments gathered in New York to discuss the future of international drug policy, conservative states – who favoured maintaining the traditional supply-centric and broadly repressive approach to drug markets – appeared to be on the backfoot. In contrast, reformist civil society, which advocated focusing international drug policy on health and human rights, as well as the failures of the war on drugs, had made tremendous gains in the period 2012–2016.

Cannabis had been legalized in several jurisdictions, Latin American governments were increasingly vocal about the ‘stationary bike’ they had been strenuously cycling in pursuit of a ‘drug-free world’, and European governments were resolute in their support for public health-based policies to address demand. A liberal US administration was far more tolerant of diverging approaches to the global issue, and the US State Department, traditionally hawkish in pursuit of drug control orthodoxy, was driven towards a middle-ground approach of accepting UN treaty ‘flexibilities’ and ‘different national drug policies’.

Despite the apparent momentum towards reform, discussions stalled in the run-up to the 2016 meeting. Critics of the war-on-drugs model found it difficult to articulate an alternative vision beyond broad policy suggestions, such as complete legalization and a greater focus on public health. Furthermore, the consensus-based nature of the UN drug control system made radical change virtually impossible. Reformist civil society had hoped for a chaotic meeting that would fuel a sense of policy fragmentation and force a systemic readjustment of the UN drug treaty architecture. In reality, however, the outcome was far less explosive, with member states adopting a pragmatic diplomatic approach to widening the normative parameters of the UN system. This involved moving beyond the traditional focus of the three pillars of demand reduction, supply reduction and public health, and instead moving towards a seven-theme Outcome Document incorporating gender, human rights and alternative development.

Initially, reformist civil society was shocked by the system’s apparent inability to reform itself. However, recognizing some clear normative gains, they soon declared a limited victory in the face of what had previously seemed like a defeat. Most notably, perhaps, the principle of treaty ‘flexibilities’ was enshrined as a multilateral means of reconciling increasingly divergent national policies within a century-old treaty system.

Conservative states, meanwhile, focused on the traditional pillars of drug control, emerged from 2016 reinvigorated and determined to push back against the perceived dilution of the UN drug control system. Reformist countries, a broad, changing and diverse grouping, struggled to maintain their gains, while continuing to advocate for alternative drug policies. The following 10 years thus saw a largely rear-guard action by reformist civil society and sympathetic governments.

Moreover, the political landscape began to change. Cocaine markets in Europe experienced an inexorable rise, compensating for the decline of US markets. This fuelled state security concerns around organized crime and increased violence within the market. Latin American governments underwent various political shifts, resulting in changing national positions. The US began to recognize the scale of the opioid epidemic, and the geopolitics of drug control shifted towards Asia as synthetics emerged as a vital global issue. Meanwhile, the UN system and its secretariat continued to mirror the interests of member states and broader power politics.

2026 began as a year set to dramatically alter multilateralism. The long-awaited nascent multipolar order has become somewhat formalized, solidifying the shift towards regional and interest-based approaches to international cooperation. A funding crisis has further weakened the UN system’s capacity to adapt, with substantial financial and capacity cuts now planned for its various entities, including those responsible for drug policy.

Europe has shifted the emphasis of its drug policy from promoting public health to organized crime and citizen security. The legalization of cannabis has continued, with little indication of a global reversal, despite some states reconsidering their position. Concerns about the synthetic drug market have fuelled a cautious approach and driven an exponential increase in harm in certain contexts, particularly in countries with more limited capacity to respond to it. Cocaine markets remain a monumental challenge, fuelling violence and public health crises, and many states are adopting a more realistic approach of containment rather than an unrealistic goal of a ‘drug free world’.

Some outlier dynamics have raised hopes of radical change within reformist civil society. Although the WHO agreed to review the classification of the coca leaf as a Schedule I substance under the UN Conventions (the strictest level of international control), it ultimately rejected the proposal due to a lack of evidence. Undoubtedly, the international political landscape influenced the feasibility of this idea, despite the evidence-based arguments that were put forward.

Meanwhile, in the absence of a consensus at the last CND, a high-level expert panel has been appointed to review the global approach to drug control. Reformist civil society, which has long advocated for such a panel, believes this represents an opportunity to force deep systemic change. They expect the panel to highlight the weaknesses of the current approach and the UN’s organizational structure. However, as with UNGASS 2016, these expectations drastically underestimate the deeply conservative leanings of key member states, which will steer the process away from anything too drastic. Furthermore, what represents a potential green shoot of normative opportunity may come to represent a risk of conservative backsliding, if the panel’s politics don’t align with those of the reformists.

All of this is without taking into account the vastly different geopolitical and multilateral landscape. Governments interested in a rules-based international order have no incentive or desire to challenge existing instruments. In an era where post-World War II norms are openly challenged by leading powers, UN treaty systems hold less sway over national policies. Furthermore, geopolitics is increasingly impacting areas of agreement or technocratic focus that were previously considered settled.

In reformists’ eyes, UNGASS represented a failure to achieve the maximalist goal of systemic change on a broad scale. Nevertheless, it secured some important victories by shifting the focus of the UN system towards drugs, and enshrining greater national sovereignty over drug control through treaty flexibilities. These were important developments that shifted the course of the international drug control system, which originated in 1909. Ultimately, 2016 represented the high-water mark for what could be termed the ‘reformist era’ of drug control.

As we enter the 2026 CND, then, we find ourselves facing a system in the midst of geopolitical multi-crises and the UN’s own internal funding crisis. However, having weathered two world wars, the end of the bipolar world order and the transition from unipolarity to multipolarity, the drug treaty system will likely endure. It still has core functional value for member states in managing the complex global licit market and establishing norms for the illicit market.

Nevertheless, those hoping for radical reform during the current crisis are likely to be disappointed, as they were after UNGASS 2016. The key lesson from that event was that international systems reform slowly and are driven from the bottom up, for example, by local-level changes, rather than from the top down. Fundamentally, it is national and international power politics that determine the evolution of international frameworks. Expect a CND meeting marked by uneven debates and procedural caution, with louder discussions on minor issues and the UN system avoiding any areas of potential rupture or division.