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UK: World Of Drugs

Ros Wynne-Jones

The Mirror

Monday 22 Nov 2004

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The astonishing facts that show how this costly 130-year war on narcotics
has achieved so little



BILLIONS have been spent by governments in Western Europe and North America
fighting the drug dealers. But the war is being lost.

Heroin, cocaine, metamphetamine and other illegal drugs are cheaper, purer
and easier to get hold of than ever.

And in the United States alone half a million people are behind bars on
drug charges - more than the entire prison population of Western Europe.

These shocking statistics show how drugs are ruling the world.

42%

of British 11 to15-year-olds were offered drugs last year.

55%

of burglars test positive for Class A drugs.

80million

Americans have used drugs at some time.

4,175,357

US cannabis users were arrested during Bill Clinton's presidency.

12.5%

of the world's drugs are consumed in the US.

UKP300bn

is the value of the global illegal drug trade, according to United Nations
estimates - on a par with the global trade in oil or arms.

UKP600m

was spent by US federal government on drug control in 1980.

UKP18bn

was spent by US federal and state governments on drug control in 1997.

UKP6.6bn Value of the UK drug market in 2001.

UKP36bn

is spent on illegal drugs by US population per year.

14m

marijuana users in the US.

5,000

"problematic drug users" in the UK when Home Secretary James Callaghan
introduced the Misuse of Drugs Act in 1971. Today there are 280,000.

129 years

since the first US clampdown on drugs: closing Chinese-run opium dens in
San Francisco.

UKP1.03bn

direct annual expenditure by UK government on "tackling drugs" strategy,
2002-3.

60%- the drop in price of heroin in Western Europe in the past decade.
Cocaine is 45 per cent cheaper and 95 per cent of street prostitution in
the UK is related to crack and heroin use.

60,000

hectares of suspected coca farms were fumigated by the CIA in 2001 - yet in
the same year there was a 60 per cent increase in land dedicated to coca crops.

UKP60bn

- average yearly earnings of the US drug trafficking industry.

46%

of street heroin in the United States is from South America, 23.9 per cent
is of South-East Asian origin and 27.3 per cent comes from Mexico.

150

countries signed up to the UN Convention on Drugs.

90 years

since the Harrison Act outlawed the use of cocaine in America, playing on
fears of "Negro Cocaine Fiends" or "Cocainized Niggers" posing a threat to
white women.

1937

The year marijuana was criminalised in the US amid fears that violent
pot-smoking Mexicans were threatening the US way of life.

1 in 3 Americans has used drugs.

32 years

since President Nixon invented the War On Drugs to describe the United
States' anti-drugs programme.

UKP1.2bn

was spent by the Bush Snr administration on spraying "drug" fields in Latin
America.

2,500

FBI agents were assigned to fighting drugs pre 9/11; 1,151 were assigned to
fighting terrorism.

UKP26m

was handed over by George W Bush administration to the Taliban in return
for a ban on opium poppy fields, four months before 9/11.

UKP1.2bn

- current illicit income from poppy cultivation and heroin production in
Afghanistan.

1.3 tons

of heroin was seized in South American airports in 2002.

1,000 tons

of Canadian marijuana is shipped annually to the US.

495,536

cannabis plants were eradicated in California in 2001.

18 tons

of heroin was consumed last year by United States users.

2,968

drug-related deaths in UK in 2000.

UKP20bn

The annual cost of drug-related crime, estimated by the UK government.

drug offenders were executed by China to celebrate UN world anti-drugs day
in 2002.

64 5.1m

cocaine users, 2.1 million ecstasy users and 426,000 heroin users in the UK
in 2002.

50%

of women in UK prisons have a drug problem.

24,299

federal drug cases in US between April 2000-April 2001.

700 tons

of pure cocaine is produced annually by Colombia.

337 tons

worth of heroin is currently being grown in Afghanistan. 250 tons

of pure Colombian cocaine consumed by America in 2003; 150 metric tons
consumed by Europe.

2,500 tons

of marijuana grown in US each year.

5,000 tons

of marijuana imported to the US from Mexico annually.

UKP1,020

Export value of drug for each opium-producing family in Afghanistan in 2003.

UKP600m spent on bribes by Colombian drug cartels annually.

20%

of all cannabis seized worldwide in 2002 came from Africa.

1.4m

injecting drug users in North America; 1.2million in Western Europe.
400,000 intravenous users in Middle East and North Africa, 3.3 million in
South and South-East Asia and 1 million in South America.

65%

of all opiate seizures in 2003 were in Asia.

3-4m

heroin users in Russia, the world's largest heroin market.

1m

registered drug addicts in China, 2003.

3000%

- the average profit margin on hard drugs in the UK.

153,800 hectares under coca cultivation, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.

185m

people worldwide consume drugs annually, according to UN figures.

168 tons

of opium produced in Laos in 2002.

UKP1.30

Average price per kg of Peruvian coca leaf.

3.4%

of Irish 15 to 64-year-olds used ecstasy last year - making Ireland the
drug's biggest consumer in Western Europe.

96,600

Moroccan farms grew cannabis in 2003.

27%

UK prisoners reported using heroin.

77

countries use the death penalty for drug offences: Saudi Arabia
(beheading), Iran (hanging), China (shooting, lethal injection), Singapore
(hanging), Vietnam (shooting), Malaysia (shooting) and Thailand (shooting).


TOMORROW: The terrible cost of this failed campaign

r.wynne-jones.@mgn.co.uk

 

 

 

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