COMMISSION ON NARCOTIC DRUGS CONCLUDES DISCUSSION ON CROP REDUCTION STRATEGIES
Press Release
SOC/NAR/736
COMMISSION ON NARCOTIC DRUGS CONCLUDES DISCUSSION ON CROP REDUCTION STRATEGIES
19960424 (Reproduced as received from the UN Information Service.)Vienna, 23 April -- The Commission on Narcotic Drugs this afternoon concluded its discussion on crop reduction, hearing three speakers.
For its consideration of the item, the Commission had before it secretariat report titled "Crops from which drugs are extracted and appropriate strategies for their reduction".
Statements were made by the representatives of China, Bolivia and Japan. Jeffrey Hart, Officer-in-Charge of the Supply Reduction Section of the United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP), summarized the discussion begun this morning.
In other action this afternoon, the representative of Japan announced that he would circulate a report from the working group on administrative and budgetary matters, which contained a discussion of the budgetary cuts to the UNDCP work programme and the efficiency of the Commission. It included options to reschedule or shorten meetings of the Heads of National Drug Law Enforcement Agencies (HONLEA). It also suggested that an inter-sessional open-ended working group be established to address matters relating to the administration of the Programme.
The representative of the United States said her Government would be supportive of the intention to establish the working group. However, she requested that the proposal indicate the staff resources that would be required from the secretariat to support the group's activities.
Crop Reduction
WANG QIANRONG (China) strongly objected to two references in the secretariat report on crop reduction which claimed that China had under cultivation 2,000 hectares where illicit opium poppy was produced. That was untrue and unacceptable to his Government.
MARY CARRASCO (Bolivia) described her country's alternative development and eradication efforts. Voluntary reduction programmes had been successful,
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and strategies were in place to ensure that farmers would not divert the land involved to illicit cultivation in the future. Those programmes emphasized compensation for the social and economic costs of crop replacement, and included strategies for job creation, guaranteed food security and improved infrastructure. As a result, coca cultivation had been reduced from 35,000 to 28,000 hectares.
She pointed out that the cultivation of coca crops in Bolivia was encouraged by the international demand for drugs. Bolivia would not shy away from its responsibilities to eliminate these crops, but believed that the farmers concerned were attracted by the prices paid for their crop because of consumer demand in other countries.
HIROSHI AZUMA (Japan) urged the UNDCP to strengthen its role as mediator and coordinator of alternative development programmes. He urged recipient countries to place a high priority on alternative development in their drug strategies.
JEFFREY HART, Officer-in-Charge of the Supply Reduction Section of the UNDCP, commented on the discussion. He was interested to learn of Poland's strategy to replace poppy plants with low-morphine varieties, which maintained the poppy industry while rendering the crop useless for producing heroin.
Responding to China, he explained that data on cultivation was often incomplete, extremely weak or non-existent. Accordingly, the secretariat had made the decision to use the data collected from all available sources while giving priority to data provided by Governments.
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