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Press Briefing to launch World Drug Report 2004, and "Drugs: Treatment Works" Campaign
In his presentation, Mr Carlsgaard said that the aim behind this year's theme for the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking, "Drugs: Treatment works", was to raise the level of awareness about drug treatments and to reduce the stigma behind it. He explained that the campaign was looking at individuals from all over the world, who had successfully undergone treatment and were now engaged in productive lives, by publishing their personal stories. Every story was different, showing all shapes and forms of drug treatment, so that people could identify with the featured individuals. The individuals were featured on posters, postcards and radio public service announcements in order to reach a wider audience. Mr. Carlsgaard added that fact sheets to educate people about treatment were also available on the UNODC website at http://www.unodc.org/ (Following the press briefing and the poster exhibit opening event UNODC organized a tour of a local drug treatment facility for journalists in order to help UNODC raise public awareness in Austria.) Mr. Chawla then took the floor and gave a general overview of the two-volume World Drug Report 2004, which for the first time merged the former Global Illicit Drug Trends publication and the World Drug Report. The first volume covered market trends and in-depth trend analyses while the second compiled detailed statistics on the worldwide drug market. After explaining on how the figures should be understood, Mr. Chawla said that approximately three per cent of the world population (185 million people) had abused drugs during the previous 12 months. A small percentage had abused cocaine (13 million people) or opiates (15 million abusers of heroin, morphine and opium). By far the most widely abused substance was cannabis (used at least once a year by over 150 million people), followed by the amphetamine-type stimulants - ATS (38 million users, among them eight million users of ecstasy).
In term of health impact, opiates were the world's most serious drug problem (67 per cent of drug treatment in Asia, 61 per cent in Europe, 47 in Oceania). In South-East Asia, methaphetamines have become the main problem, and cocaine still came first on the American continent, whereas in Africa cannabis continued to dominate. Mr. Chawla also mentioned that over the 10-year period the quantities of illicit drugs seized had increased as a whole, with the strongest increase for ATS. To conclude, Mr. Chawla said that the World Drug Report 2004 provided a comprehensive picture of the global drug trends, presenting supply (production and trafficking) and demand statistics. As far as long-term prospects were concerned, he announced that the heroin and opium markets were under control, showing a decline, but added that a lot would depend on Afghanistan. For the cocaine market, a long-term decline could also be expected. For ATS, the situation was more difficult as figures were not readily available. For the cannabis market, Mr Chawla announced a universal increase. The briefing was followed by a question-and-answer session. In response to the question regarding drug trafficking patterns, Mr. Chawla answered that in general, the trafficking routes remained the same. However, some minor changes in the trafficking routes of opium/heroin and synthetic drugs could be observed. When asked to elaborate on the type of drugs that caused most of the 200,000 drug-related deaths, Mr. Chawla said that there were no exact numbers but one could speculate that heroine addicts had the highest mortality rate, although there were also cannabis-related deaths. To the question if the Netherlands' low number of hard drug addicts could be seen as the result of its liberal drug policy, Mr. Chawla answered that within the international drug control system there was no distinction between hard and soft drugs, and cannabis was controlled the same way as heroine. In response to the question whether or not the UNODC was worried about drug treatment success stories giving the impression that it was easy to stop using drugs, Mr. Carlsgaard replied that, on the contrary, these stories proved how difficult it was to stick with the treatment, due to lack of facilities or lack of willpower on the part of the addict. To the question on the situation in Austria as far as drug trafficking was concerned, and on what could be done for Afghanistan, Mr. Chawla answered that Austria was involved with opiates as much as the other countries in the region, and showed a high level of ecstasy consumption. Regarding Afghanistan, UNODC followed three principles: to reduce the opium cultivation, to provide alternative livelihoods for farmers and to ensure the rule of law was obeyed. In response to the question whether UNODC could do something for drug treatments or only provide data, Mr. Chawla answered that it was very important that certain standards were implemented, especially in developing countries where very few drug treatment facilities existed. About 40 representatives of media and NGOs attended the briefing. (APA, AP, AFP, El Pais, The Sekkai Nipón, ORF TV, Der Standard, Dutch Radio, etc.). * *** * |
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UNIS Vienna held a press briefing to launch the
Mr. Chawla said that less than one adult person out of 30 (five per cent of the population aged 15 to 64) had used illicit drugs during the past year, seven times less than the number of people consuming tobacco (30 per cent of the world population). He added that despite that drug abuse was much more dangerous than tobacco. Mr. Chawla then explained developments in the four main drug markets (opium, cocaine, cannabis and amphetamine-type stimulants) according to the same criteria: production, consumption, number of seizures, and level of prevalence. He highlighted the fact that opium poppy cultivation had declined in two major drug-producing regions, i.e. South-East Asia and in the Andean region.
