Despite counter-measures, drug trade and abuse are expanding, Narcotics Board states.

Despite counter-measures, drug trade and abuse are expanding, Narcotics Board states

Abuse of drugs is spreading, the number of users is increasing and new areas of illicit drug cultivation and production have emerged, according to the 1985 Report of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB). Despite progress over the past year in fighting the problem at national and international levels, further co-ordinated action is imperative to significantly reduce illicit supplies and drug abuse, the Board emphasizes.

A particularly "ominous development' cited in the report (E/INCB/ 1985/1), issued in January 1986, is the increasingly clear link between drug trafficking, illegal arms trade and international terrorism.

Illicit cultivation and production of drugs, according to the Board, are being financed and organized by international crime syndicates. The huge profits generated by the drug trade-- often "laundered' through legitimate enterprises--are frequently used to finance other criminal activities.

"This whole process undermines the economic and social order, spreads violence and corruption, and jeopardizes the very political stability and security of some countries', the Board declares.

Cannabis--marijuana and hashish-- remains the most widely abused drug in the world, and heroin abuse is spreading, the Board reports. The emergence and abuse of new drugs is also detailed, along with increases in the illicit production of opiates and other familiar substances.

Pointing to "even more baneful patterns' of cocaine abuse in recent years, the Board notes that cocaine is "so compellingly addictive' that it is one of the few drugs that, in studies, animals chose over food, leading to their death by starvation.

"Designer drugs'

The emergence of new and hazardous drugs of abuse is causing great anxiety in a number of countries, the INCB report indicates. In recent years, the phenomenon of "designer drugs' has posed a serious challenge to drug control efforts, particularly in the United States.

"Designer drugs' are analogues of substances controlled by national law and/or the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and its 1972 Protocol, and the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic [man-made] Substances. In "designer drugs', the chemical structures of the "parent' substances are altered to produce compounds with properties and effects similar to the "parent' drugs, but which, because of slightly altered chemical make-up, do not fall within existing legal controls.

According to the INCB, a number of those analogues are very potent; some heroin-like drugs are reportedly 10 to 250 times as strong as the parent substance. Because of their high potency, as well as impurities and by-products resulting from clandestine manufacture, use of those analogues entails the high risk of serious side-effects or fatal overdoses. A substance called MPPP, which simulates the effects of morphine, has led to cases of an irreversible syndrome resembling that of Parkinson's disease.

In addition to narcotic analogues, there has been increasing use of MDMA, an hallucinogenic amphetamine, and Board reports.

Legislation currently pending in the United States would make it a crime to manufacture or distribute a "designer...