Pubdate: Tue, 26 Jun 2007
Source: Times of India, The (India)
Copyright: Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. 2007
Contact:  http://www.timesofindia.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/453

200 MILLION PEOPLE IN WORLD USE DRUGS: UN

- ---  NEW DELHI: About 200 million people around the world consume 
drugs each year, with cocaine, opium and its derivatives - including 
heroin - topping the list of favourites, a United Nations report said 
on Tuesday.

"Though a large share of the world's population - about five per cent 
of the people between the ages of 15 and 64 - uses illicit drugs each 
year, only a small fraction of these can be considered 'problem drug 
users'," the report issued by the United Nations Office on Drugs and 
Crime (UNODC) said.

According to the report, opium continued to be the prime drug in most 
of Europe and Asia. In South America victims queue up mostly for 
cocaine-abuse treatment and in Africa abuse is primarily confined to cannabis.

More than half of the world's opiate (opium derivatives)-using 
population lives in Asia, with the highest levels of abuse occurring 
along the main drug-trafficking routes out of Afghanistan.

The total number of opiate users in Central Asia is close to 300,000. 
Around one million people around the world use heroin.

The report said that the global consumer market of narcotics has 
remained stable in 2006 despite a significant increase in drug abuse 
in the countries along major trafficking routes.

However, the report noted that several Asian countries - Pakistan, 
Iran and India included - and some parts of Africa, Russia and Europe 
had recorded an increase in heroin consumption over the last decade.

"Many of these areas have high levels of poverty and HIV, leaving 
people vulnerable to the worst effects of this drug," said the report.

The UN organisation added that cocaine use in Asia has increased 
slightly, mainly due to higher levels of use in India. Still, in most 
parts of Asia cocaine use remained at very low levels.

Cocaine use increased in 2006 in Africa, especially western Africa. 
High and rising levels of cocaine use has also been reported from 
Britain and Italy.

However, the UNODC stressed that the global drug problem was being 
contained. The production and consumption of cannabis, cocaine, 
amphetamines and Ecstasy have stabilised at the global level - with 
one exception.

"The exception is the continuing expansion of opium production in 
Afghanistan. This expansion continues to pose a threat - to the 
security of the country and to the global containment of opiate abuse."

The report also said that the global opiate interception rate rose 
from just nine percent in 1990 to 15 percent in 1995, 21 per cent in 
2000 and 26 per cent in 2005 - reflecting increased efforts made by 
various countries to curb trafficking in opiates.

In Pakistan, where poppy is grown in the Afghan-Pakistan border 
region, the government reported a 59 per cent reduction in the area 
under cultivation in 2006, bringing it to 1,545 hectares.

The report said that injecting drug use has contributed to increasing 
HIV infections in India, Indonesia, Iran, Libya, Pakistan, Spain, 
Ukraine, Uruguay and Vietnam.

"In China, Central Asia and several countries of eastern Europe, 
injecting drug use has been the most frequently cited mode of 
transmission of HIV in recent years," the report said.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom