Drug crime syndicates challenge state authorities.

Drug crime syndicates challenge State authorities

Drug-related crime has taken on new dimensions with trafficking syndicates now holding enough financial power to challenge State authorities in some South American countries. This was revealed in the 1987 annual report of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), released in January in Vienna. The ever-increasing world-wide drug menace also entails the added risk of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). In some parts of the United States and Europe every second AIDS patient has contracted the disease due to intravenous abuse. Some Governments have introduced or are considering methadone maintenance programmes to provide a substitute for herone. "In giving the fight against AIDS priority over the fight against drug abuse, some Governments are allowing the distribution of free needles to addicts", the report states. Such prophylactic measures, however, should be in line with interational drug control efforts and should not promote or facilitate drug abuse.

On a positive note, the Board states that almost all attempts to divert legally-produced psychotropic substances into illegal channels have been prevented lately, because of closer co-operation between exporting countries and relevant international institutions.

These successes have been possible primarily because most countries now export psychotropic substances only if import requests are accompanied by assessments of medical requirements.

'Alarming proportions'

Reviewing the world-wide situation, the Board says that illegal production and trafficking of drugs have reached alarming proportions and "are financed and masterminded by criminal organizations with international links and with accomplices in financial circles".

In some areas of South and Central America, alliances between traffickers and guerrillas present "a formidable threat to regional security", says the Board. Several campaigns to reduce cultivation and trafficking of coca leaf in Bolivia and other Andean countries have not achieved the desired effect and the vast areas planted with coca bush are still expanding. Also in Peru eradication of the coca bush is said to be "a slow and dangerous process" since traffickers have retaliated with a campaign of terror against peasants, workers and policemen involved in coca eradication programmes. Nonetheless, a series of operations called "Condor", begun in 1985, have resulted in the destruction of over 170 clandestine airstrips, the shutting down of many large-scale laboratories and smaller installations for coca leaf processing, and the confiscation of several tons of coca paste and cocaine.

Data collected in Western Europe during 1986 and part of 1987 do not confirm the stabilization or even decline in drug-related deaths during the immediately preceding years. However, the average age of persons whose death is related to drug abuse continues to increase. The Board draws the conclusion that possibly fewer young people are abusing drugs. Studies in Scandinavia and the Federal Republic of Germany have shown that young people are more aware of the risks of abuse than they were three to five years ago.

With 1.75 tons, 1986 was a record year for heroin seizures in Western Europe. Seizures of central nervous system stimulants, in particular amphetamines, have increased sharply in the Federal Republic of Germany and the United Kingdom.

The Board sees "substantial evidence" that cocaine is becoming more widely available throughout the United States and that prices are falling while purity is rising. Cocaine accounts for higher rates of overdose deaths, drug emergency cases and other serious medical problems than any other drug abuse.