Call for more resources for prevention, treatment

Amid an increasingly brutal struggle for a bigger slice of $50 billion global cocaine market between Central American drug cartels, the head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has warned that legalising narcotics would be an “historic mistake.”
In a call for global boost in drug treatment and crime control, UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa acknowledged that laws controlling narcotics have created a huge black market for illicit drugs that thrives on violence and corruption.
However, “a free market for drugs would unleash a drug epidemic,” said Costa, as UNODC launched its 2009 World Drug Report on Wednesday in Washington, DC, according to a press release of UNODC received here from Vienna yesterday.
“Proponents of legalisation can't have it both ways,” he said, adding, “Legalisation is not a magic wand that would suppress both mafias and drug abuse.”
Costa stressed that attempts to remove drug-related crime by decriminalising illicit drugs, as some have suggested, would be an “historic mistake” because of the danger narcotics pose to health.
He called for more resources for drug prevention and treatment, and stronger measures to fight drug-related crimes.
“International efforts are paying off,” said Costa who launched the World Drug Report along with newly appointed Director of the US Office of National Drug Control Policy Gil Kerlikowske.
“As long as demand for drugs persists, weak countries will always be targeted by traffickers,” said Costa, adding, “If Europe really wants to help Africa, it should curb its appetite for cocaine.”
The new UNODC study reported that opium cultivation in Afghanistan, where 93 percent of the world's total is grown, declined by 19 percent in 2008, and Colombia, which produces half of the world's cocaine, saw an 18 percent decline in cultivation and a 28 per cent decline in production.
“The more opium is seized in Afghanistan's neighbourhood, the less heroin on the streets of Europe, and vice versa, the less heroin is consumed in the West, the more stability there will be in West Asia,” said Costa who plans to bring the message to a Group of Eight industrialised nations (G-8) ministerial conference on Afghanistan later this week in Italy.
“US President Barack Obama's administration is committed to expanding demand reduction initiatives,” said Kerlikowske, adding, “Through comprehensive and effective enforcement, education, prevention, and treatment, we will be successful in reducing illicit drug use and its devastating consequences.”
The report provides a number of recommendations on how to improve drug control, including the treatment of drug use as an illness.
“People who take drugs need medical help, not criminal retribution,” said Costa appealing for universal access to drug treatment with the argument that people with serious drug problems provide the bulk of drug demand and treating this problem would contract the market.
He also pointed out that housing, jobs, education, public services, and recreation can make communities less vulnerable to drugs and crime.
Besides, enforcement of international agreements such as UN Conventions against organised crime and corruption would also help international drug control efforts, he added.