PRESS BRIEFING BY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF UNITED NATIONS OFFICE OF DRUG CONTROL, CRIME PREVENTION

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING BY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF UNITED NATIONS OFFICE OF DRUG CONTROL, CRIME PREVENTION

A new strategy for combating drugs from both the supply and demand ends will be introduced during the June special session of the General Assembly on illicit drugs, the Executive Director of the Office of Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Pino Arlaachi, said this afternoon, during a press briefing at United Nations Headquarters.

Reporting both on the recent meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna and on his ensuing trip to Iran, Mr. Arlaachi said the draft declaration finalized by the Commission for presentation at the special session represented an important victory for the global war on drugs, since it was the first time all countries had agreed on a strategy for a supply- reduction programme with a parallel demand-reduction component.

The trip to Iran had revealed a new situation with regard to drugs in that country, Mr. Arlaachi said. Iran was expending staggering efforts and resources to stem the flow of drugs from Afghanistan. The border-control arrangement instituted 10 years ago was highly effective, but last year alone Iran had lost 2,500 police in armed conflict with drug traffickers. In its commitment to helping Iran, the Office would be sponsoring a major cultural programme on drugs later in the year.

In Vienna, where his Office was centred and where the Commission had met, progress was being made with internal reform, focusing on the reduction of overhead costs, he said. New substantive programmes were expected to be added within the next year or two. The report from the Office also indicated a very high level of participation in the special session. Numerous heads of States, including the Presidents of France, Italy, Portugal and many South American countries had indicated they would attend.

A correspondent asked about the experience of the United Nations United Nations Drug Control Programme with alternative crop development as a method of controlling illicit drug supply. Mr. Arlaachi said the public misperception that the programmes were unsuccessful was based on what had occurred during the 1980s. In recent years, the programmes had been stronger and were doing particularly well in South America. The improvement in the alternative crop programme was mainly due to three causes. First, there had been about a 50 per cent decline in both coca and opium prices over the past 10 years, which reduced the differential between substitute and illicit crop profitability. Secondly, the quality of alternate development programmes had dramatically increased with the understanding that all such programmes had to include an element of prohibiting the illicit crops, and that the prohibition must be enforced. Finally, technology had enabled the broadening of the

alternative programmes to include more complex schemes than merely the simplest ones, such as crop rotation. That had now led to thinking in terms of national alternative development programmes.

Another significant feature of the present drug market was that it had very much globalized in recent years, he said. Supply and demand were no longer separated by former distinctions, and the drug trade was no longer a matter of "poor producers and rich consumers". In the present drug market, illicit substances were produced by both wealthy and poor nations, and both were sources of demand. The drug trade was no longer poverty related as it had been, and while it was discouraging that the phenomenon was so widespread, the situation created the foundation for a single approach to be developed and applied for the illicit drug phenomenon.

In response to another question, Mr. Arlaachi said there was a difference between simple drug use and the addictive component which characterized the illicit drug trade in the contemporary world. While drugs had always been used in cultural contexts, the contemporary drug trade was a market rather than a social phenomenon. In a social phenomenon, there was a spontaneous growth in market spread, from local to national to regional and finally to a global market. The illicit drug industry, on the other hand, which depended on addiction, had gone straight from a local to a global phenomenon, due to promotion by criminal elements in society.

The $400 billion drug industry was a large market, Mr. Arlaachi conceded, in response to another question about the formidability of drug traffickers. However, that figure had to be seen as a metaphor because, unlike a single large company, the drug trade was carried out by many small entities. That was an important distinction, and one that made victory over illicit drugs certain. The entity fighting the illicit drugs was now concerted, and it had better resources as well as "smarts".

Asked whether developing countries had the resources to back up the commitments they would make at the special session, Mr. Arlaachi said they did not. That was why the follow-up programmes to the special session would be important for tapping developed world investments in the effort. At the same time, a number of South American countries had recently begun to finance up to 50 per cent of the illicit drug-fighting programmes in their countries, which was a good sign of commitment.

With respect to strategies for reducing demand, Mr. Arlaachi was asked what more could be done than simply to encourage people -- as one American First Lady put it to "just say no". He said the answer was that every country had to tailor its own programme within the broader framework of the global approach. Goals had to be set about what each country wanted to achieve and how. However, for all countries, preventive education was key, as demonstrated by the success of many such programmes throughout the world. There was a feeling of confidence that those programmes were the direction to

UNDCP Briefing - 3 - 16 April 1998

pursue in the fight to reduce both demand and supply, because supply-reduction programmes were not permanent. The only permanent change was to reduce demand, because as long as people wanted illicit drugs, that demand would be met.

In response to other questions, Mr. Arlaachi said his related jurisdiction of crime control was centred on the important question of small arms, which were increasingly becoming a problem in both criminal activities and in the settling of personal disputes. He said the Taliban in Afghanistan had agreed to a limited control programme for eradicating the illicit poppy industry within a specific area under its control. If that was successful, the UNDCP would enter in with alternative development programmes.

Asked whether national armies should be used for fighting the drug war, Mr. Arlaachi said there could be no general answer. Armies could be useful for specific tasks, such as fortifications along borders, and that plan had been suggested to Iran, which was expected to implement it. However, it was important to keep armies working within the democratic framework of human rights. Armies could not be used for the more sophisticated tasks of policing, such as arresting people and so on. In his own country, Italy, the armies carried out some aspects of police work, such as protecting public buildings against terrorists, which freed up the police for their own work.

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