NEW STRATEGY FOR DRUG CONTROL OUTLINED AT OPENING OF FORTY-FIRST SESSION OF COMMISSION ON NARCOTIC DRUGS
Press Release
SOC/NAR/777
NEW STRATEGY FOR DRUG CONTROL OUTLINED AT OPENING OF FORTY-FIRST SESSION OF COMMISSION ON NARCOTIC DRUGS
19980316 VIENNA, 11 March (UN Information Service) -- Under-Secretary-General Pino Arlacchi, Executive Director of the Office of Drug Control and Crime Prevention, stating that 1998 provided a strategic opening in the global fights against drugs, today outlined a new strategy to eliminate illegal coca and opium within 10 years. He was speaking at the opening of the forty-first session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, which started today in Vienna."We want to produce the best ideas and strategies the world's experts have to offer", Mr. Arlacchi said. "But I feel strongly there is no time to waste. While caution in a virtue I hold dear, 1998 provides the international community with an opening. There is a feeling worldwide that the use and production of illegal drugs can be ended."
He outlined the accomplishments of the United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) and offered his vision for the future. "We view demand and supply as equal sides of an equation. In order to reduce one, you must simultaneously focus on the other", he said. He also highlighted the details of a new strategy, called SCOPE, the Strategy for Coca and Opium Poppy Elimination.
The Strategy calls for a worldwide system to monitor illicit cultivation and prevent the "balloon effect". It is biased on a participatory approach, involving local communities and the appropriate balance between law enforcement, alternative development and demand reduction.
"There are times when I feel like we are in a fight with one hand tied behind our back", Mr. Arlacchi said. There had been an increase in UNDCP's resources, reversing six-year downward trend, he added.
The former Italian Senator and Professor of Sociology was appointed by the Secretary-General to head the Programme last September. Today was his first opportunity to address the annual gathering of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs.
The Commission is comprised of 53 countries and serves as its policy- making body. The Ambassador of Tunisia, El Fadhel Khalil, was elected today as its new Chairman. He replaces the Ambassador of Mexico, Roberta Lajous.
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