NATIONS TO SET UP HIGH-TECH NETWORK IN MONITORING ILLICIT DRUG CROPS WORLDWIDE
Press Release
SOC/NAR/796
NATIONS TO SET UP HIGH-TECH NETWORK IN MONITORING ILLICIT DRUG CROPS WORLDWIDE
19990324 (Reissued as received.)VIENNA, 24 March (UN Information Service) -- In an unprecedented move, member countries of the United Nations main policy-making body for drug control have agreed to set up a high-technology monitoring network, including ground surveys and remote satellite sensing, in a global effort to eradicate the coca bush, cannabis plant and opium poppy by 2008.
The Commission on Narcotic Drugs adopted at its annual meeting a resolution, sponsored by Colombia, requesting the United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) to help governments with national tools to monitor illicit drug growing, so that drug control targets laid down at last June's General Assembly special session to eradicate illicit crops can be met.
National monitoring would form the backbone of an international network to stamp out illicit drug crops. The UNDCP would establish a central data bank with information supplied by governments on illicit cultivation and report annually to the Commission on progress made in eliminating these crops.
"This is a big step ahead in the strategy to eliminate illicit crops worldwide", said Pino Arlacchi, Executive Director of the UNDCP. "The international community now has an instrument that will accurately measure all progress to eradicate illicit crops and promote alternative development. The next step will be to begin implementing the monitoring programme by providing adequate resources", he said.
The Commission agreement is the follow-up to a plan drawn up at the General Assembly special session in June 1998 -- the Action Plan on International Cooperation on the Eradication of Illicit Drug Crops and on Alternative Development -- when nations agreed to design monitoring systems for illicit drug crops and report their findings to the UNDCP.
Although estimates have been regularly made, the international community currently has no reliable system to collect and analyse data on illicit drug crops, particularly for the cannabis plant. With no international monitoring
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system in place, it can neither assess progress to eliminate drug crops nor successfully prevent the "balloon effect" or transfer of illicit cultivation to other regions.
The resolution was co-sponsored by China, Bolivia, Iran, Papua New Guinea, Nigeria, Ghana, Ecuador, France, Thailand, Madagascar, South Africa, Morocco, Chile, Turkey, Russian Federation and the Sudan. The Commission's current session -- its forty-second -- began on 16 March and runs until 25 March.
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