Growing concern over drug addiction rate

In its new annual report, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), an independent body set up under international treaty, has expressed concern over the resurgence of poppy cultivation in Pakistan, coupled with spiralling addiction rates. "Our major concern is the increase in the injecting drug use of heroin in Pakistan, which will increase the HIV/AIDS pandemic," Thomas Zeindl-Cronin, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Tuesday. He added that some 500,000 heroin addicts in the country were increasingly turning to injecting drug use, which was of huge concern. Pakistan’s law enforcement agencies seized around 9,000 kg of imported heroin last year – one of the highest hauls in the world. The country’s drug control officials maintain that compared to the 800 mt of poppy produced in 1980s, Pakistan had only produced six tonnes of poppy last year. "The resurgence of poppy cultivation is not on a substantial level, but it’s a cause for concern," he said, adding that UNODC was monitoring the situation closely. Recently,local media reported some resurgence of poppy cultivation in the semi-autonomous Khyber, South Waziristan and Dir tribal areas, close to the border with Afghanistan. Shaukat Hussain, a senior official with Pakistan’s Ministry of Narcotic Control, told IRIN that his ministry was trying to eradicate poppy cultivation in the country. "We are facing the challenge of achieving a zero level of cultivation," he said. "Poppy cultivation is illegal, and we are trying to put across our message to the farmers." Most of Pakistan's half a million addicts source their heroin from neighbouring Afghanistan - the world’s largest producer of opium in 2002. For the year 2002, the INCB annual report looks at the impact of illicit drugs on economic development. It said that far from making poor countries rich, illicit drug production kept most people in developing countries mired in poverty. "The idea that countries grow rich through the production of illegal drugs is a dangerous myth," the report stated. The report also shows that only one percent of the money that is ultimately spent by drug users worldwide on maintaining their habit is earned by farmers engaged in illicit drug cultivation in developing countries. Other people along the drug trafficking chain earn the remaining 99 percent. Pakistan reported the strongest decline in opium production in the early 1980s when it shrunk by 6.3 percent annually - the strongest in South Asia. INCB estimates that about US $48 billion is spent on cocaine and $32 billion on heroin by consumers in Western Europe and the US every year. But the bulk of the profits remain in developed countries. Moreover, drug trafficking tends to be accompanied by increased levels of violent crime and official corruption. Moreover, countries producing drugs or used as major drug routes eventually came to face their own drug abuse problems, the report said.