GLOBAL opium production plunged almost 40% last year but the world remains awash with heroin, the narcotic that still kills the most people worldwide, the United Nations said yesterday.

UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) head Yury Fedotov said: "Heroin continues to be the drug that kills the most people and this resurgence must be addressed urgently."

A UNODC report said production of opium, which is processed into heroin, had fallen to 4 770 tons last year, a 38% plunge from 2014.

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Progressive Plan Earns Eruption of Applause

The Liberal government used its first foray into the global anti-narcotics arena this week to signal a clear shift from the war on drugs philosophy, promising more safe-injection sites, promoting "harm reduction" and touting its plan to legalize marijuana.

The speech by Hilary Geller, an assistant deputy minister of health, caused a stir at the generally staid Commission on Narcotic Drugs conference in Vienna, observers said.

The audience of government and non-governmental organization officials from around the world "erupted in applause" midway through the address and gave a prolonged ovation at the end, said Jason Nickerson, an Ottawa-based researcher who is attending the meeting.

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Global cannabis use seemed to have decreased, reflecting a decline in some European countries, but a lower perceived risk has led to more use in the United States, a U.N. report says.

VIENNA - More Americans are consuming cannabis as their perception of the health risks declines, the U.N. drugs agency said yesterday, suggesting liberalization could further increase its use among the young.

In a finding that could feed into an international debate on the decriminalization of marijuana, it said more people around the world, including in North America, were seeking treatment for cannabis-related disorders.

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THE global fight against narcotics has suffered serious setbacks, including record opium cultivation in Afghanistan and a surge of trafficking-related violence in Central America, according to the United Nations anti-drugs chief.

At the opening of an international meeting on the issue, Yury Fedotov also noted some successes, such as a shrinking cocaine market.

There are around 27 million "problem drug users" in the world and about 210,000 narcotics-related deaths a year, a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) document prepared for the conference said.

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VIENNA Colombia's vice president, Francisco Santos Calderon, warned European countries recently that they ignore an increase in cocaine consumption across the Continent at their peril. When looking at the relaxed approach to drug control pursued by some European governments, I am tempted to go even further and conclude that societies have the drug problem they deserve.

That rise in cocaine use will no doubt be a topic of discussion as international experts in drug control meet at Wilton Park in England this weekend to consider this question: Is international drug policy working? My answer to that question will be "Yes, but ..."

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VIENNA, Austria - Drug traffickers are targeting middle-class Americans with high purity heroin that users can smoke rather than inject, a U.N. agency warns in a report being released Wednesday.

The Vienna-based International Narcotics Control Board -- an independent U.N. body that monitors the global drug situation -- says producers are tailoring new narcotics products to meet the sensitivities of Americans who find injecting drugs repulsive.

"This shows how the illicit market operates in a very smart way by selling a drug to a new class of users by telling them, "Use it in a different way and you won't become addicted."

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VIENNA, Austria -- A group of European policymakers and nongovernmental organizations said yesterday the United Nations' war on drugs was doomed to fail, and called instead for decriminalizing drug use.

They said narcotics should be treated like alcohol and tobacco -- legal, but under state health controls.

"The war on drugs cannot be won because it is a war on human nature," Sir Keith Morris, former British ambassador to Colombia, told a news conference called during a meeting of U.N. anti-drugs agencies. "History shows that no society ever existed which was `drug-free.'"

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VIENNA, Austria - A group of European policy-makers and nongovernmental organizations said Thursday the United Nations' war on drugs was doomed to fail, and called instead for decriminalizing drug use.

They said narcotics should be treated like alcohol and tobacco -- legal, but under state health controls.

"The war on drugs cannot be won because it is a war on human nature," Sir Keith Morris, former British Ambassador to Colombia, told a news conference called during a meeting in Vienna of U.N. anti-drugs agencies.

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VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Critics of a U.S.-led global crackdown on illicit drugs declared the policy a failure Tuesday, calling it "the war that America cannot win" and urging a United Nations commission to consider other approaches to the problem.

Activists, think tanks and non-governmental organizations asked the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs to examine what they called a disturbing lack of progress midway through a global campaign to curb drug cultivation, trafficking and consumption by 2008. Their harsh assessment came as delegates from 116 countries met in Vienna to review the ambitious anti-drug effort, launched by the U.N. General Assembly in 1998 and loosely modeled after the United States' "war on drugs."

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VIENNA -- Critics of a US-led global crackdown on illicit drugs declared the policy a failure yesterday, calling it ''the war that America cannot win'' and urging a United Nations commission to consider other approaches.

Activists, think tanks, and nongovernmental organizations asked the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs to examine what they called a disturbing lack of progress in midway through a campaign to curb drug cultivation, trafficking, and consumption by 2008.

Their harsh assessment was made as delegates from 116 countries met in Vienna to review the ambitious antidrug effort, launched by the UN General Assembly in 1998 and loosely modeled on the US ''war on drugs.''

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VIENNA, Austria -(AP)- Critics of a U.S.-led global crackdown on illicit drugs declared the policy a failure Tuesday, calling it "the war that America cannot win" and urging a United Nations commission to consider other approaches to the problem.

Activists, think tanks and non-governmental organizations asked the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs to examine what they called a disturbing lack of progress midway through a global campaign to curb drug cultivation, trafficking and consumption by 2008.

Their harsh assessment came as delegates from 116 countries met in Vienna to review the ambitious anti-drug effort, launched by the U.N. General Assembly in 1998 and loosely modeled after the United States' "war on drugs."

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VIENNA, Austria -- Critics of a U.S.-led global crackdown on illicit drugs declared the policy a failure Tuesday, calling it "the war that America cannot win" and urging a United Nations commission to consider other approaches to the problem.

Activists, think tanks and non-governmental organizations asked the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs to examine what they called a disturbing lack of progress midway through a global campaign to curb drug cultivation, trafficking and consumption by 2008.

Their harsh assessment came as delegates from 116 countries met in Vienna to review the ambitious anti-drug effort, launched by the U.N. General Assembly in 1998 and loosely modeled after the United States' "war on drugs."

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Sellers Are Going Online To Peddle Their Stashes, Launder Money And Share Some Tricks Of The Trade.

VIENNA, Austria -- Czech drug traffickers arrange deals at Internet cafes. Australians use courier Web sites to track illegal packages of pills. American dealers swap recipes for amphetamines in restricted- access chat rooms.

Worldwide, drug traffickers increasingly are taking advantage of encrypted e-mail and other Internet technology to sell their stashes, launder money and trade tips and techniques, the U.N. International Narcotics Control Board has warned in a report.

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Austrian Ministry Of Interior Will Pay For Study Of System Designed By LifePoint Inc. In Ontario.

ONTARIO -- LifePoint Inc., maker of an innovative device that quickly pinpoints drug and alcohol levels with a small amount of saliva, has been chosen by the Austrian government to participate in a study.

The study could lead to Austria using the product countrywide, said Linda Masterson, president and CEO of LifePoint. The Austrian Ministry of Interior will pay for the study, to begin in September. Initial results are expected by the end of 2001. The study is funded through mid-2002, according to a company statement.

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A team of British auditors for the United Nations has cleared Pino Arlacchi, the head of the organization's anti-narcotics office, of charges of impropriety made by a former associate and some politicians in Europe. But the report faulted his office, the United Nations Drug Control Program, in Vienna, for some lapses in recruitment procedures and handling of travel expenses, as well as overambitious programs begun before money was available to see them through. Two other reports on his office are due in coming weeks from the United Nations inspector general's office.

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VIENNA Cocaine and heroin abuse is diminishing worldwide but consumption of amphetamines is growing, the United Nations says.

A report published by the UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention said the increase in amphetamine use was mainly in Europe and Asia, with developed countries the main suppliers.

In the United States, drug use fell 40% from 1985 to 1999, with cocaine use falling 70%. Officials with the drug agency said much of the reduction was a result of increased government spending on prevention and treatment. The amount climbed from $US855 million ($NZ1.929 billion) in 1985 to $US5.6 billion in 1999, the equivalent of $US20 a person.

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The number of heroin-addicted Australians has more than doubled in the past decade, despite the country leading the world in diverting users into methadone treatment programs.

Two studies to be released in the Australian Medical Journal today reveal that public health policies and rising methadone use - the drug most widely used in treating heroin addiction - have failed to halt the upsurge in heroin dependency.

Scientists from the University of New South Wales National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre said that about 74,000 Australians, or seven out of 1000 adults aged between 15 and 54, used heroin daily.

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VIENNA, July 4 (Reuters) - Austrian police have seized 104 kilograms of heroin in the country's biggest ever haul of the drug, officials said on Tuesday.

The cache was discovered at Vienna's Schwechat international airport on June 26, packed into the sides of 100 cardboard boxes. Police said the boxes were filled with textiles and bound for the United Kingdom.

Two Austrian men have been detained in connection with the seizure. Police were due to release further details at a news conference later on Tuesday.

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Austria Is Trying To Cut The Risk Of Harm - And Death - At Raves.

Armed with a hi-tech computer-controlled mobile lab, teams of chemists and social workers in the European country are offering free drug testing at raves of 5,000 or more youths.

The project - Check It! - is the first in the world to offer analysis that differentiates several hundred different substances and measures their strength and the presence of any contaminants.

In B.C., Dance Safe, a volunteer group of youths, hands out drug information at some raves and sells small test kits - but not ones that identify side products or purity.

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Money Laundering A $870 Billion-A-Year International Business

VIENNA - Kevin Ford, a former New York city deputy police commissioner, thought he knew everything there was to know about corrupt cops.

He had struggled through some of New York's most embarrassing police corruption scandals before leaving in 1998 to work as an international investigator for a London-based firm.

That's when he discovered the real world.

"In some eastern European countries, criminal groups actually control the police," he said. "In Nigeria, if you need help from law enforcement, you better be prepared to send a taxi."

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Afghanistan Crop Is Large Chunk Of Boost

VIENNA, Austria -- Opium production soared to record levels in Afghanistan this year, increasing the world's supply of the illicit crop by 60 percent, despite assurances from the country's Taliban rulers that they are combatting narcotics, the United Nations said Friday.

Once refined into heroin, the crop will find its way to markets in Western Europe and the United States unless countries bordering Afghanistan can intercept shipments, the U.N. International Drug Control Program said.

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Experts consider prosecution 'senseless Sisyphus Labour'

Vienna - The Vienna stadium holds 60,000 people. If you filled it four times over, you would have the number of those who have tried cannabis in Vienna. "To pupnish 15% of the population is a seseless, Sisyphus task for police and the justice department," said the Vienna drug policy coordinator, Peter Hacker; "Such consumption should not lead to prosecution under the drug laws. "That is the policy that we have followed since the neginning of the 90s."

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VIENNA, Oct 19 (Reuters) - The United Nations could eliminate global opium and coca cultivation in the next 10 years, the U.N.'s chief drugs fighter said on Monday.

Pino Arlacchi, executive director of the United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP), said significant progress had already been made in restricting supply.

``This year we have already had a decline in drugs production in Afghanistan, Peru and Bolivia and stability in Colombia,'' he said in an interview with Reuters. ``I think it is feasible to achieve our target in 10 years.''

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VIENNA - The US antidrug coordinator, Barry R. McCaffrey, tried yesterday to ease Dutch anger at his criticism of the Netherlands' drug laws, saying he has ''high respect'' for the country despite differences over narcotics policy.

McCaffrey, a retired general, visited the headquarters of the UN Drug Control Program in Vienna as part of an eight-day tour to examine European drug treatment and prevention programs. The visit has been overshadowed by McCaffrey's strong criticism of the Dutch policy of allowing citizens to use marijuana and other drugs for therapeutic and recreational purposes.

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