UNODC presents World Drug Report 2010

VIENNA, June 24 (Itar-Tass) -- The United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime (UNODC) presented the World Drug Report 2010 at the National Press
Club in Washington on Wednesday.
Taking part in the launch were UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria
Costa, Viktor Ivanov, Director of the Federal Drugs Control Service of the
Russian Federation, and Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the White House
Office of National Drug Control Policy.
The report shows that drug use is shifting towards new drugs and new
markets. Drug crop cultivation is declining in Afghanistan (for opium) and
the Andean countries (coca), and drug use has stabilized in the developed
world. However, there are signs of an increase in drug use in developing
countries and growing abuse of amphetamine-type stimulants and
prescription drugs around the world.
The report shows that the world's supply of the two main problem drugs
- opiates and cocaine - keeps declining. The global area under opium
cultivation has dropped by almost a quarter (23 per cent) in the past two
years, and opium production looks set to fall steeply in 2010 due to a
blight that could wipe out a quarter of Afghanistan's opium poppy crop.
Coca cultivation, down by 28 per cent in the past decade, has kept
declining in 2009. World cocaine production has declined by 12-18 per cent
over the period 2007-2009.
Global potential heroin production fell by 13 per cent to 657 tons in
2009, reflecting lower opium production in both Afghanistan and Myanmar.
The actual amount of heroin reaching the market is much lower (around 430
tons) since significant amounts of opium are being stockpiled. UNODC
estimates that more than 12,000 tons of Afghan opium (around 2.5 years'
worth of global illicit opiate demand) are being stockpiled.
The World Drug Report 2010 shows that in the past few years cocaine
consumption has fallen significantly in the United States, where the
retail value of cocaine declined by about two thirds in the 1990s and by
about one quarter in the past decade.
To an extent, the problem has moved across the Atlantic: in the last
decade, the number of cocaine users in Europe has doubled, from 2 million
in 1998 to 4.1 million in 2008. By 2008, the European market (34 billion
U.S. dollars) was almost as valuable as the North American market (37
billion U.S. dollars). The shift in demand has led to a shift in
trafficking routes, with an increasing amount of cocaine flowing to Europe
from the Andean countries via West Africa, causing regional instability.