World Drug Report 2010: drug use is shifting towards new drugs and new markets

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Source: UN

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.

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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) was almost as valuable as the North American market ($37 billion). 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. "People snorting coke in Europe are killing the pristine forests of the Andean countries and corrupting governments in West Africa", said Mr. Costa.

Read more: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2010/June/drug-use-is-shifting-towards-new-drugs-and-new-markets.html?ref=fs1

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here the report, in details:

http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/WDR-2010.html

[Oregone]

1. Canada is dong an embarrassing job with Cannabis

Though, estimates are based off seizures, not surveys. Maybe the RCMP is just well-paid off.

[bemildred]

2. One wonders how these statistics are collected.

I suspect that they are based largely on crime statistics (arrests) and government reports (convenient fictions). I don't know what is really going on with drug use in the world, not good I would expect, but I doubt that this sort of report means much.

[Bo]

3. LEGALIZE , TAX and EDUCATE...end of problem

[PJPhreak]

4. Ding,Ding,Ding!! We Have a Winner!! nt

[Tempest]

5. Reports show Afghan opium production is down, but...

Usage of opium in Afghanistan has skyrocketed.

Also, the declining production is mostly because growing conditions have been poor. Production will increase again as conditions improve.