World drug problem is being contained, says UN

OPIUM poppy cultivation was down 22% worldwide in 2005, a UN report found yesterday, as part of a generally favourable, albeit inconclusive, trend in efforts to contain illicit drug use.

The UN Office on Drug and Crime attributed the decline in opium poppy cultivation to cutbacks in the world’s three main illicit opium producers: Afghanistan, Burma and Laos. Opium is the main ingredient for heroin.

“In Afghanistan, in 2005, opium poppy cultivation decreased for the first time since 2001,” the report said.

Still, it said, that country accounted for 89% of opium production worldwide.

The US State Department’s annual report on illicit drugs, issued in March, acknowledged that opium production is hampering democracy-building efforts in Afghanistan.

“Afghanistan’s huge drug trade severely impacts efforts to rebuild the economy, develop a strong democratic government based on rule of law, and threatens regional stability,” according to the report.

Despite the sharp decrease in the total area under cultivation in all opium producing countries, the UN report said production was down only 5% due to more favourable weather conditions during the 2005 growing season in Afghanistan.

“The world’s supply of opium has shrunk, but in an unbalanced way,” the study said.

“Within a few years, Asia’s notorious Golden Triangle, once the world’s narcotics epicentre, could become opium-free.

“But in Afghanistan, while the area under opium cultivation decreased in 2005, the country’s drug situation remains vulnerable to reversal ... as early as 2006.”

The World Drug Report also found that cocaine use is reaching alarming levels in western Europe. Consumption of marijuana, the most widely used illicit drug also, continued to increase, the study said.

The report concluded, however, that: “Drug control is working and the world drug problem is being contained.”

Levels of drug cultivation and addiction are much lower than 100 years ago, it said.