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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: UN sees new drug abuse pandemic
Francois Murphy Reuters
Wednesday 01 Mar 2006 VIENNA (Reuters) - The UK has one of Europe's highest rates of cannabis use and the rate of cocaine abuse has also risen but the synthetic drug methamphetamine has become a greater concern across the world, the U.N. narcotics watchdog said on Wednesday. Sold on the street in various forms known as 'meth', 'speed' and 'ice', the drug has spread from Southeast Asia to parts of the world where it was virtually unknown until recently, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) said. The spread to Africa and eastern Europe is fuelled by the ability of traffickers to obtain legally two chemicals needed to make it, ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, the INCB said in its 2005 report. "Methamphetamine is pandemic now," INCB President Hamid Ghodse told reporters ahead of the report's release. "The major problem that they have (in the United States) is with methamphetamine." The report found the UK had one of Europe's highest rates of cannabis use, alongside the Czech Republic, France, Ireland and Switzerland. Surveys also showed that the use of cocaine had risen among young people in the UK, Denmark, Germany and Spain. But the report said methamphetamine was the big worry. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration lists brain damage and psychotic behaviour on its Web site as some of the possible effects of methamphetamine use. One way methamphetamine ingredients are shipped to labs is by post as unlicensed Internet pharmacies sell billions of doses of medicines illegally each year and deliver them by post. "The phenomenon is growing not only in size but also ... in terms of the number of countries involved," INCB Secretary Koli Kouame told a news conference. Besides drugs such as cocaine, heroin and ecstasy, legal pharmaceutical drugs, some stronger than morphine, are also shipped by post without prescriptions particularly in America, the INCB said. "The value of such pharmaceutical drugs smuggled via the postal system is estimated to be in hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars," it added. The INCB recommended limiting the number of entry points for parcels into countries and introducing scanning equipment.
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