Stronger international response to drug problem needed, UN Board states.

• Position: International Narcotics Control Board

Drug-related violence is escalating around the world, threatening political institutions and economies, warned the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) in its annual report for 1990.

The overall situation worldwide remained grave, INCB President Betty Gough told the Commission on Narcotic Drugs on 3 May, as she presented the report. The danger was all the more lethal because of the spread of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections through intravenous drug abuse and the increasing number of children born to abuser mothers, she said.

Recalling the drug-related murders of presidential candidates in Colombia and Peru in recent years, the Board reported that democratic institutions in both countries have been virtually under siege as a result of the drug problem.

Drug trafficking organizations are well financed and heavily armed and have become more innovative and better organized, the Board reported. Links continue to be forged among drug traffickers, terrorist groups and criminal organizations within countries and regions, as well as internationally.

The Board cited information indicating that during 1990 trafficking organizations in South America and Western Europe might have been using each others' routes in a joint venture to smuggle cocaine to Europe and heroin to North America.

Seizure data show that such linkages were also being established between South-East Asian traffickers and criminal organizations elsewhere. "The current abundant supply of heroin makes this development particularly ominous", the Board stated. The international community must respond to drug traffickers in an even more forceful, comprehensive and innovative manner, the Board said. Action should target all elements of the drug chain, from curbing demand and reinforcing extradition measures to blocking access of traffickers to arms, airplanes and precursor chemicals and promoting and marketing alternative crops.

Regional reports

The report also reviewed international drug control efforts in 1990 and offered a region-by-region analysis of the situation.

Africa had been used as a heroin transit point from South West Asia to Europe and North America. Cannabis was widely available and cocaine trafficking increased. Millions of psychotropic substance tablets continued to be diverted to Africa, endangering public health. In many cases, consumers obtained them from street markets. The European and Asian manufacturing and exporting countries concerned "bear a...