Addressing the 51st session of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) the Executive Director, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Antonio Maria Costa, has called for the international drug control regime to be made fit for purpose for the 21 st century.

Mr. Costa admitted that drug control has an image problem: too much drug-related crime; too many people in prisons, and too few in health services; too few resources for prevention treatment, and rehabilitation; too much eradication of drug crop, and not enough eradication of poverty.

However, what people fail to see are the accomplishments of drug control:

Illicit drug use has been contained to less than 5 per cent of the world adult population, as opposed to 5 to 6 times this proportion for people addicted to tobacco or alcohol;

There are no more than 25 million problem drug users – that’s less than 0.5 per cent of the world population. There are more people affected by AIDS;

Deaths due to drugs are limited to perhaps 200,000/year, namely 1/10 of those killed by alcohol and 1/20 of those killed by tobacco;

Worldwide, drug cultivation has been slashed (with the obvious exception of Afghanistan where the issue is insurgency, more than narcotics);

UNODC Says World Drug Problem Contained, But Not Solved

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