Designer Drugs Rise

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Mackenzie Phillips & Christopher Kennedy Lawford, UNODC Goodwill Ambassador address at UNHQ in rising abuse of prescription & designer drugs.

While global markets for cocaine, heroin and cannabis declined or remained stable, the production and abuse of prescription opioid drugs and new synthetic drugs rose, the United Nations annual drug report said today.

The report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said that some 210 million people, or 4.8 per cent of the global population aged between 15 and 64, took illicit substances at least once in the previous year.

Launching the report today at the United Nations in New York, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted that the toll on young people and children was especially heart-breaking and stressed that people who became dependent on illicit drugs should not be blamed for that, adding that "drug addiction is a disease, not a crime.”

Co-launching the report UNODC’s Executive Director Yury Fedotov emphasized the need to address the threat with a clear plan of action.

Fedotov said that the response “must be comprehensive, balanced, and targeted and that "supply reduction measures must go hand in hand with the efforts to reduce demand.”

Newly appointed UNODC Goodwill Ambassador, author and actor Christopher Kennedy Lawford said he had accepted the UNODC appointment because of his personal knowledge dealing drug addiction and alcoholism in the past.

Kennedy Lawford added, “I know recovery from drug dependence is possible for those who are given a chance.”

Actress and recovering addict Mackenzie Phillips expressed the importance of attending the meeting. “I feel the pain of my brothers and sisters -and they're certainly not genetic brothers and sisters- who are still suffering from addiction and alcoholism.”

Phillips who was initiated to smoking cannabis and injecting cocaine by her father at a very early age said, “I didn’t really have a chance.”

Later, at a press conference Yury Fedotov said the report found that the global drug threat had not diminished.

“While global markets for cocaine, heroine and cannabis declined or remain stable the production and abuse of prescription opiate drugs and new synthetic drugs rose."

Fedotov added that although there had been a decline in opium production as well as a “modest reduction” in coca cultivation “over all the manufacture of heroine and cocaine was still significant causing suffering a death to millions."

He also noted that although the cocaine market in the United States and North America had witnessed a massive decline in recent years, “nevertheless US and North America market continued to be the largest cocaine market equivalent to 36 percent of global consumption." Fedotov said it was followed by the European market “which is the second largest.”

The report noted that global opium poppy cultivation reached some 195,700 hectares (ha) in 2010, a small increase over 2009. Opium production declined, however, by 38 per cent to 4,860 tons due to a blight that wiped out much of the opium harvest in Afghanistan.

Nonetheless, the bulk of opium production still took place in Afghanistan (3,600 tons or 74 per cent of the global total). While cultivation in Afghanistan remained stable, the global trend was mainly driven by increases in Myanmar, where cultivation rose by some 20 per cent from 2009.

The global area under coca cultivation shrank to 149,100 ha in 2010, an 18 per cent drop from 2007. During that time, potential cocaine production fell by about one-sixth, reflecting the significant decrease in cocaine production in Colombia. Consequently, this decline was not offset by small increases in Peru and the Plurinational State of Bolivia.

Directors:

• Muhamed Sacirbey (UNTV-ONODC)

Producers:

• Susan Sacirbey (UNTV-UNODC)