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Politics : The Iraq War And Beyond -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ed Huang who wrote (177)	6/25/2003 7:15:32 PM
From: BubbaFred	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9018

UN: Afghanistan New Villain in Illicit Drug Trade Wed Jun 25,11:30 AM ET Add World - Reuters to My Yahoo! By Catherine Bremer PARIS (Reuters) - Illicit drug production is on the wane in Myanmar, Laos, Colombia and Peru but flourishing in Afghanistan (news - web sites), feeding a growing heroin market in Central Asia, Russia and Eastern Europe, U.N. drug experts said on Wednesday. While cocaine production is declining, the opium crop leapt in 2002 due to the ousting of the Taliban in Afghanistan and heroin abuse is spreading AIDS (news - web sites) along a new trafficking route to Eastern Europe, the United Nations (news - web sites) Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) 2003 report shows. The report, based on surveys, satellite images and field verification, is good news for the notorious "Golden Triangle," comprising Myanmar, Laos and Thailand -- suggesting the region's ties with the drugs trade are being broken by efforts to promote alternative income sources for poor farmers. But it is a blow for the Afghan government which aims to end drug production by 2013. It also suggests that in more developed markets there is a shift toward chemical-based party drugs like ecstasy and speed, seen as more socially acceptable than heroin. "Growth of opium production in Afghanistan has increased the heroin market in the region and in Central Asia, the Russian Federation and Eastern Europe. The HIV (news - web sites)/AIDS epidemic has been expanding at an alarming rate due mainly to the increase in intravenous heroin abuse," UNODC head Antonio Maria Costa said. Opium production in the Golden Triangle fell by 40 percent between 1998 and 2002 and should fall again in 2003, UNODC said, releasing its global drug figures in Paris. But the resumption in Afghanistan of large-scale poppy farming since U.S.-led forces ousted the ruling Taliban at the end of 2001 has lifted world output back above 2001 levels, and made Afghanistan the main global producer with 76 percent of the market against 12 percent in 2001. Afghanistan's former rulers clamped down on opium growing, but it has since flourished under the protection of warlords. LATIN AMERICA The long war against drug-trafficking in Latin America has paid off with a fall in cocaine production and a decline in the drug's use in North America, but UNODC noted that cocaine use was rising in Western Europe and South America. Colombia, the source of three-quarters of the world's cocaine, has seen a 37 percent decline in coca cultivation over the past two years, reversing an eight year trend, UNODC said. Coca output was stable in neighboring Peru, now 60 percent below 1995 levels, and almost marginal in Bolivia. Costa said the hardest fight now was to track down the producers of amphetamine-type stimulants, such as speed and ecstasy, which are concocted in easily concealed laboratories with readily available chemicals. "This makes assessing the...production of such drugs extremely difficult. Above all, and this is very worrisome, too many people seem to condone the abuse of synthetic drugs, increasing their acceptability in society," he said. Southeast Asian drug barons have been switching in droves to synthetic drugs from heroin and cocaine, while the Netherlands, Poland and Belgium are the main sources of amphetamines. UNODC estimates about 200 million people use illegal drugs -- about 163 million using cannabis, 34 million amphetamines, 14 million cocaine, 15 million opiates and eight million ecstasy. story.news.yahoo.com