Pubdate: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU) Copyright: 2007 The Gazette, a division of Southam Inc. Contact: http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274 Author: Karin Strohecker, Reuters Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin) WORLD'S LARGEST DRUG SUPPLIER: HELMAND PROVINCE Afghanistan's Helmand province, heartland of Taliban guerrillas fighting NATO forces, is about to become the world's largest drug supplier, the United Nations said today. Helmand, a province in the south of Afghanistan, cultivated more drugs than entire countries such as Myanmar, Morocco or even Colombia, the Vienna-based UN Office on Drugs and Crimes said in its 2007 World Drug Report. "Curing Helmand of its drug and insurgency cancer will rid the world of the most dangerous source of its most dangerous narcotic, and go a long way to bringing security to the region," said UNODC Director Antonio Marias Costa in the report's preface. While the amount of land under illicit poppy cultivation fell by 10 per cent globally between 2000 and 2006, global opium production soared by 43 per cent to a record high of 6,610 tonnes in 2006 from a year earlier. This was due to a shift in output from inferior southeast Asian fields to more productive ones in Afghanistan - which in 2006 produced 92 per cent of all opium in the world. Other worrying signs came from Africa, suggesting the impoverished continent could find itself at the crossroads of international drug crime. "There are warning signs that Africa is also under attack, targeted by cocaine traffickers from the west - Colombia - and heroin smugglers in the east - Afghanistan," the report said. "This threat needs to be addressed quickly to stamp out drug-related crime, money-laundering and corruption, and to prevent the spread of drug use that could cause havoc across a continent already plagued by other tragedies." The cultivation, production and abuse of almost every kind of drug around the world - cocaine, heroin, cannabis and amphetamine-type stimulants - had stabilized overall. With about 160 million annual customers, cannabis provides the largest illicit drug market by far. According to UN estimates, global cannabis herb production eased by 6 per cent to 42,000 tonnes in 2005 from a year earlier. Cocaine production has remained largely stable over the past few years. It was estimated at 984 tonnes in 2006 amid signs of a drop in cultivation in Andean countries, especially Colombia. Global output of amphetamine-style stimulants was estimated to have nudged down by 2 per cent to 478 tonnes in 2005. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman