UNITED NATIONS, June 26 (Xinhua) -- The head of the UN anti-drug office on Tuesday highlighted the impact of drug abuse around the world, saying countering transnational organized crime and illicit drugs must become an integral part of the development agenda.
"Heroin, cocaine and other drugs continue to kill around 200, 000 people a year, shattering families and bringing misery to thousands of other people, insecurity and the spread of HIV," said Yury Fedotov, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), at a special debate of the UN General Assembly on drugs and crime as a threat to development.
"At present, only around one quarter of all farmers involved in illicit drug crop cultivation worldwide have access to development assistance -- if we are to offer new opportunities and genuine alternatives, this needs to change," Fedotov said.
The debate of the 193-member General Assembly coincided with the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, observed annually on June 26, and was also the forum for Fedotov's launch of UNODC's flagship study, the 2012 World Drug Report.
The outcome of the Assembly's drugs debate will be transmitted to the 13th UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Doha, Qatar, in 2015.
With the 2015 deadline approaching to take stock of global progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), there is an increasing recognition that organized crime and illicit drugs impede the attainment of those goals, Fedotov said.
According to the UNODC chief, drug-producing and drug-consuming countries alike have a stake in fighting the illicit drug trade, and governments should not forget that illicit drugs also affect health and security globally.
Drug use appears to be spilling over into countries lying on trafficking routes, such as in west and central Africa, which are witnessing rising numbers of cocaine users, and Afghanistan and Iran, which are grappling with the highest rates of opium and heroin use.
He called for international support to strengthen the capacity of vulnerable countries to confront that challenge.
The 2012 World Drug Report finds that although global patterns of illicit drug use, production and health consequences largely remained stable in 2012, opium production had rebounded to previous high levels in Afghanistan, the world's biggest opium producer.
In addition, lower overall levels of cultivation and production of opium and coca have been offset by rising levels of synthetic drug production.
Around 230 million people, or five percent of the world's adult population, aged 15 to 64, are estimated to have used an illicit drug at least once in 2010, said the report.
Problem drug users, mainly heroin- and cocaine-dependent persons, number about 27 million, roughly 0.6 percent of the world adult population, or one in every 200 people.
The report said Afghanistan has returned to high levels of opium production. Global opium production amounted to 7,000 tons in 2011, up from 2010. Myanmar remained the world's second largest poppy-crop grower and opium producer after Afghanistan, with cultivation up by 14 percent in 2011 and a nine percent share of global opium production.
As for cocaine, the report found the number of estimated annual cocaine users in 2010 ranged from 13.3 million to 19.7 million -- or around 0.3 to 0.4 of the global adult population. Major markets for cocaine continue to be North America, Europe and Australia. The United States saw cocaine use decrease from 3.0 percent in 2006 to 2.2 percent in 2010 among adults, and in Europe cocaine use remains stable but continues to rival use in the United States.
However, cocaine use is up in Australia and South America, and it is also spreading to parts of Africa and Asia.
The 2012 World Drug Report said the use and global seizures of amphetamine-type stimulants, the second most widely used drugs worldwide, remained largely stable.
In 2010, methamphetamine seizures, of around 45 tons, more than doubled those of 2008, due to significant seizures in central America and east and southeast Asia. In Europe, "ecstasy" pill seizures more than doubled, from 595 kilograms in 2009 to 1.3 tons in 2010, indicating a stronger market on that continent.
There are between 119 million and 224 million estimated cannabis users worldwide, with Europe being the world's biggest market for cannabis resin, in the form of hashish, mainly supplied by Morocco, although its relative importance is declining, said the report. Most European Union countries report increasing indoor cultivation of cannabis herb, known as marijuana, possibly reflecting a growing preference for marijuana over hashish.
Meanwhile, the report also touched upon the non-medical use of prescription drugs, noting that in many countries there is more non-medical use of prescription drugs than of controlled substances, other than cannabis.