UN to combat drug trade

Two United Nations agencies have launched a campaign to help Malawi’s government combat drug abuse and trafficking in the country, a UNDP official confirmed to IRIN on Tuesday. The official said the US $517,000 programme will start as soon as all the parties involved, including Malawi’s customs and police, have signed the agreement. The campaign will be spearheaded by the UNDP in Malawi and the UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention. Said the UNDP official: “The main component of the campaign aims to train about 40 officers from the police and customs in detecting and apprehending drug traffickers,” adding that the programme will strive to improve coordination between the country’s law enforcement agencies to combat drug use and trafficking. Malawi, said the UNDP, is among the world’s largest producers and users of marijuana or cannabis. The largest market is South Africa because of the relative ease of transportation by road through Mozambique and Zimbabwe, while smaller amounts of the drug finds its way into Europe and America through tourist visitors to the country. According to Malawi’s police figures, in 1998 at least 1,131 cases of cannabis smuggling and usage were heard in the courts, involving 1,102 Malawians and 42 non-residents. Malawi’s main cannabis fields are reportedly in the central lakeshore district of Nkhotakota and the northern district of Mzimba - inaccessible forest areas which can only be raided from the air. The UNDP official also said that following the country’s first democratic elections in 1994, Malawi is increasingly being used as a transit route for hard drugs like cocaine and heroine. “The opening up of the political situation has brought with it the drug cartels who use the country as a conduit for their drugs to lucrative markets in South Africa and Asia,” the official alleged.