Pubdate: Wed, 11 Mar 2009
Source: Scotsman (UK)
Copyright: 2009 The Scotsman Publications Ltd
Contact: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/contactus.aspx
Website: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/406
Author: Mark Heinrich
Referenced: European Commission report: The World Drugs Problem, Ten 
Years On http://drugsense.org/url/yEsNto0k

UN'S WORLDWIDE ANTI-DRUGS CAMPAIGN 'HAS MADE NO PROGRESS'

A GLOBAL campaign by the United Nations to cut supply and demand for
illegal drugs has made no progress, a European Commission report has
said. The report yesterday came on the eve of a ministerial-level
meeting in Vienna by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs to review the
ten years since the campaign was launched.

Papering over dissent on how to make anti-drug policy more effective,
UN members are expected to sign a declaration committing themselves to
the programme for another decade.

The EC report said enforcing drug bans had backfired by displacing
traffickers to lawless regions. It had led to addicts sharing needles
- - spreading disease - as syringe-exchange centres have been
unavailable.

Cocaine and heroin use had declined in the West but had risen to
become "a serious epidemic" in parts of eastern Europe and central
Asia.

The report said: "The world drug situation seems to be more or less in
the same state as in 1998." 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake