By Mark Turner at theUnited Nations
Published: June 26 2006 20:38 | Last updated: June 26 2006 20:38
Despite widespread belief to the contrary, statistical evidence shows that international action has brought the world?s drugs problem under control, according to the United Nations? 2006 World Drug Report.
?Drug control is working and the world drug problem is being contained,? the study, released yesterday, concludes. ?This is true whether we look over the long term, or even just over the past few years.?
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?Humanity has entered the 21st century with much lower levels of drug cultivation and drug addiction than 100 years earlier,? it said. It argued that recent worldwide efforts to fight the affliction had reversed a rise in drug abuse that, if left unchecked, could have become a global pandemic.
To back its rosy view, the UN says that both the amount of land under drugs cultivation has diminished and the number of addicts has ?declined massively over the last century?. The area under coca cultivation has been reduced by more than a quarter since 2000, for example, and global opium cultivation has dropped to 36 per cent below 1998 levels.
But these figures mask some areas of continued serious concern. While Asia?s Golden Triangle ? Burma, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam ? could become opium-free ?with a few years?, decreases in Afghanistan could see a reversal this year.
And while coca cultivation in Andean countries has fallen and cocaine seizures have increased dramatically, cultivation has increased in Colombia, and ?demand for cocaine in Europe is rising to alarming levels?.
?Too many professional, educated Europeans use cocaine, often denying their addiction, and drug abuse by celebrities is often presented uncritically by the media, leaving young people confused and vulnerable,? the UN says.
The report also shines a spotlight on cannabis, which it describes as the ?world?s most abused illicit drug?. While government policies have waxed and waned, ?traffickers have invested heavily in increasing the potency of cannabis. The result has been devastating: today the characteristics of cannabis are no longer that different from those of other plant-based drugs, such as cocaine and heroin. With cannabis-related health damage increasing, it is fundamentally wrong for countries to make cannabis control dependent on which party is in government.?
The report also finds that after years of growth in the amphetamine market, seizures have rocketed, while the US has declared methamphetamine ?public enemy number one?. In Europe, ?synthetic psycho-active substances have lost some of their earlier appeal and been replaced by cocaine?.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/d369ee4c-0546-1 ... e2340.html :roll:
