VIENNA, June 26 (UPI) -- The United Nations warns opium production in Afghanistan could rise in 2006, after a 2005 dip, as consumption increases in Europe.
Educated Europeans are increasingly using cocaine and denying they do, while poverty and insecurity are fuelling production of heroin in Afghanistan, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said Monday.
"I urge European Union governments not to ignore this peril," Maria Costa, UNODC executive director, said. "Too many professional, educated Europeans use cocaine, often denying their addiction, and drug abuse by celebrities is often presented uncritically by the media, leaving young people confused and vulnerable."
Costa issued the statement to mark the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking and to launch a year-long campaign, "Drugs: treatment works." The campaign emphasizes the importance and effectiveness of drug treatment to drug dependent individuals and the general public.
The World Drug Report 2006 issued the same day reports 200 million people, or 5 percent of the global population aged 15-64, used illicit drugs at least once in the last 12 months.
The use of ecstasy in North America has fallen, the report indicates, but Africa is emerging as a shipment ground for drugs to Europe. Cocaine seizures in Africa increased three-fold in 2004, most of it from Cape Verde, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa,.
Followed by Myanmar and Laos, Afghanistan is the world's largest opium-growing nation.
Heroin production in Afghanistan fell 21 percent in 2005, the first such decline since 2001, but poverty, insecurity and a lack of territorial control by the authorities make it vulnerable to reversal.
"This could happen as early as 2006, despite large-scale eradication of opium crops this spring," said Costa.
