Winning the War on Drugs

Global drug use is down this year, according to the new 2006 UN World Drug Report. While the UN Office on Drugs and Crime reported a stabilization and overal decline in the market for cocaine and other illicit drugs, its executive director, Antonio Maria Costa, warns that increased marijuana use combined with new, highly potent strains of the drug are rendering it as dangerous as heroin and cocaine. Costa criticized governments, especially the UK’s, for relaxing their marijuana policies in recent years, saying that they have the “drug problem that they deserve.”

This good news about the war on drugs does come with some oddities. It seems that the drug market might be the only one which flourishes both in war and peace: unrest in Afghanistan, where 89 percent of the world’s opium originates, has the potential to contribute to increased production, while peace along the India-Pakistan border facilitates easier drug trafficking between the two nations.