Pubdate: Thu, 27 Feb
2003
Source: Economist, The (UK)
THE UN'S
DOWNER ON DRUGS
From The Economist Global
Agenda
The United Nations is worried about resurgent opium
production in
Afghanistan and soaring ecstasy use worldwide. But its ideas on
how to deal
with the problem are attracting criticism
ONE of the few
things that won international praise for Afghanistan's
fundamentalist former
rulers, the Taliban, was their crackdown on the
growing of opium poppies. As
a result, cultivation fell dramatically in
2001 and Afghanistan temporarily
lost its traditional place as the world's
main supplier of the raw material
for heroin. But after the American-led
toppling of the Taliban regime in the
wake of the September 11th attacks,
Afghan farmers rushed to replant the
lucrative crop. According to a report
this month from the United Nations'
Office on Drugs and Crime, the
country's opium production is now back at the
high levels of the 1990s (see
chart).
The annual report of another UN
agency, the International Narcotics Control
Board (INCB), published on
February 26th, urges richer countries to give
Afghanistan more aid to help it
stamp out poppy growing. The report argues
that it was the growth of the
opium trade that fuelled violent conflicts in
the country during the 1990s.
The INCB, which monitors countries'
compliance with international
drug-control treaties, also expresses alarm
that the abuse of synthetic
amphetamines, such as ecstasy, is spreading
rapidly among nightclubbers all
over the world, and reckons they could
eventually become the most widely used
illegal substances. The INCB's
report urges countries to keep up their
efforts to stamp out drugs
trafficking, and criticises moves towards
liberalisation. However, a senior
UN human-rights official, Asma Jahangir,
this week expressed his concern at
Thailand's current harsh crackdown on
drugs dealers, in which its police
are suspected of extra-judicial killings
of hundreds of suspects.
The Thai government claims most of the deaths
have been due to drug gang
leaders murdering potential informants. Even so,
the country's efforts to
stamp out drug cultivation and abuse are bearing a
high cost in human
lives, as are those of Andean countries such as Bolivia,
where the
government's attempts to stamp out coca production have contributed
to a
resurgence of violent protests in the past two months. As the INCB's
report
notes, Colombia has had some success with its big, American-funded
plan to
eradicate the coca bush and thus reduce the supply of cocaine. But
one of
the results has been a resurgence of cultivation in Bolivia and its
spread
to Venezuela and Ecuador.
The INCB argues that, since the
growers of opium and coca see only a
fraction of the profits from drugs
trafficking, they could be weaned off
their dependence with a relatively
small increase in rich countries'
foreign aid. It reckons the growers' annual
incomes are equivalent to just
2% of existing aid budgets, or 3% of America's
total spending on drug
control. However, there is not yet much evidence of
lasting success from
programmes to encourage growers to switch to
alternative, legal crops. The
INCB ties itself in knots arguing, on the one
hand, that poor countries
earn little from the drugs trade, while on the
other hand claiming that it
may cause so much "conspicuous consumption" that
it causes inflation in
these countries. In Afghanistan and Myanmar, the
report reckons, opium may
generate up to 15% of GDP, while coca may provide
3% of Colombia's national
income.
Many of the ill effects that the UN
board's report attributes to the drugs
trade--such as corruption, violence
and the resulting economic
disruption--may be largely due to it being illegal
and therefore in the
hands of crime gangs. But the report laments the
cautious steps towards
decriminalisation that some richer countries have
taken. In particular, it
criticises Switzerland, which is liberalising the
personal use of cannabis.
The Swiss authorities believe they can do this
without infringing
international drug-control treaties but the INCB continues
to insist
otherwise. It even criticises Canada and the Netherlands for
authorising
the medical use of cannabis, calling on them and other countries
to wait
for "conclusive" results from research into its medical efficacy.
This
seems over-cautious to many experts. The Lancet, a British medical
journal,
recently noted that "on the medical evidence available, moderate
indulgence
in cannabis has little ill effect on health."
Agony over
ecstasy In the longer term, perhaps a bigger threat to Afghan
poppy growers
and Andean coca farmers than official attempts to put them
out of business is
that drug users seem to be turning to amphetamine-based
chemicals such as
ecstasy, which are manufactured in illegal laboratories.
As the INCB reports,
ecstasy use is spreading from the nightclubs of rich
western countries to
southern Africa, Central America and the Caribbean,
China, Thailand and
Indonesia. Since much of it is thought to be made in
western Europe, this
represents a reversal in the flow of the drugs trade,
from developed to
developing countries.
Despite the discouraging news it has to report, the
INCB takes heart from
the fact that more countries are signing up to the
various drug-control
treaties. Thailand, Israel, Eritrea and Rwanda recently
signed the most
important one, the 1988 UN convention on drugs trafficking.
This means that
166 of the world's 192 nations are now signed up, with the UN
pressing hard
for the remaining 26 to follow suit. Nevertheless, there is
little sign
overall of any reduction in drugs production or consumption. And
the heavy
toll--both in violence and corruption of public institutions--that
results
from criminalisation remains evident across the world, from Bangkok
to Rio
de Janeiro.
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