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DRUGS: Fight Against Narco-Trafficking Goes Local

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Mar 2 2004 (IPS) - Experts on the illegal narcotics trade used to focus on the drug kingpins, but now they are shifting their gaze towards the small-time dealers who are active in local communities.

Governments and agencies are concentrated on the international crime, and not paying close enough attention to the drug-related crimes and violence at the community level that are directly affecting the population, says the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB).

National and multilateral authorities need to give special attention to “micro-trafficking” and to crime and violence associated with drug abuse at the community level, says the INCB in its annual report.

This phenomenon “has negative consequences for individuals, families, neighbourhoods and communities that need to be addressed,” said INCB president Philip Emafo.

There is ample evidence of the relationship between serious crime, violence and illegal drug use on the one hand, and the negative consequences for individuals and communities on the other, says the 2003 report on the activities of the INCB, an independent body that monitors compliance with international drug control treaties.

The report, released Wednesday, notes a study conducted in the late 1990s in which blood tests of the detainees in five districts in Britain showed that 69 percent had traces of at least one illicit drug at the time of arrest.

According to the same study, 61 percent of the cases in which the individuals were arrested for violent behaviour tested positive for drug consumption.

The INCB report also cites a World Bank study conducted in Latin America and the Caribbean, which found that youth gangs that were involved in drug trafficking were more violent than gangs that did not deal drugs.

But the experts of the INCB state that youths who consume illicit drugs and are involved in narco-trafficking are not only criminals, but also victims of their own actions.

The effects of their activities also harm their families and neighbourhoods, and entire communities suffer the effects of a culture in which violence related to illegal drug use becomes widespread and omnipresent, says the Vienna-based agency.

The INCB’s report this year emphasises the need to fight drug-related violent crime at the local level, but it also assesses the global campaign against illicit consumption, trafficking and production of these substances.

Throughout 2003, use of the Internet and international postal services continued to increase as a means to distribute illegal drugs and controlled pharmaceuticals.

The major currents of this mechanism for trafficking run from Asia to Europe and the United States. Government officials in India reported post office confiscations of packages containing psychotropic substances.

The Swiss authorities report that in the last year there has been a significant increase in the number of commercial packages containing psychotropic substances purchased through the Internet.

The INCB also found that “amphetamine-type stimulants” continue to be used by military troops during armed conflicts.

The report recalls that during World War II, the German authorities imprisoned its soldiers who used cocaine or opiates. But the German army distributed Pervitin, a methamphetamine, to its soldiers, along with alcoholic beverages.

Also in that era, the Japanese army used amphetamines in an attempt to improve soldiers’ performance.

The report states that marijuana continues to be the most commonly consumed illegal drug in Europe. Production and trafficking of marijuana are both on the rise in the region.

As for cocaine consumption, the European market is among the world leaders, surpassed only by North America.

Meanwhile, heroin use has been spreading through the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, where it is replacing the locally produced opiates.

The INCB predicts that heroin trafficking will increase throughout the Balkans and Central Europe as a result of two years of unprecedented harvests of poppies – the raw material for opium and heroin – in Afghanistan.

Despite the U.S.-led military intervention, the change in government and the continued fight against terrorism, cultivation of poppies and trafficking in opiates has increased in Afghanistan. Production of opium poppies has also returned to neighbouring Pakistan.

The INCB report reflects the concern of its 13 independent experts about a possible rise in drug trafficking to and within Iraq. However, there is not yet any indication that it constitutes a serious problem there.