Pakistan has a large number of addicts

Pakistan on Tuesday joined the rest of the world in observing the International Day against drug abuse and illicit trafficking pledging for making all out efforts to create a narcotics-free society.
Basic purpose of the day is to reiterate commitment to fight against the menace of narcotics and create greater awareness about drug abuse. Although, drug abuse affects all aspects of a society, it is harder to combat it in developing countries.
According to a recent survey, Pakistan has a large number of addicts with the majority of them aged between 15 and 35 years. Various governmental and private organisations organised walks against the drug abuse and illicit trafficking. Anti Narcotics Force Punjab also organised a walk here in a bid to create awareness among the people against the menace of narcotics.
Addressing participants of the walk, ANF Punjab Force Commander, Brigadier Babur Idrees said that ANF was trying to rehabilitate and treat drug addicts. Moreover, the annual UN report on illegal drugs says opium production in Afghanistan is soaring out of control, with the southern Helmand province about to become the world's largest drug supplier.
Helmand, which is heartland of Taliban militants fighting Nato forces, cultivated more drugs than entire countries such as Myanmar, Morocco or even Colombia, the Vienna-based UN Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) said in its 2007 World Drug Report.
"Helmand province, severely threatened by insurgency, is becoming the world's biggest drug supplier. In Afghanistan, opium is a security issue more than a drug issue," UNODC Director Antonio Marias Costa said in the report's preface, says a message received here on Tuesday.
"Curing Helmand of its drug and insurgency cancer will rid the world of the most dangerous source of its narcotic, and go a long way to bringing security to the region."
While the amount of land under illicit poppy cultivation fell by 10 percent globally between 2000 and 2006, global opium production soared by 43 percent to a record high of 6,610 tonnes in 2006 from a year earlier.
This was due to a shift in output from inferior Southeast Asian fields to more productive ones in Afghanistan, which in 2006 produced 92 percent of opium in the world, the report said. Other worrying signs came from Africa, suggesting the impoverished continent could find itself at the crossroads of international drug crime.
"There are warning signs that Africa is also under attack, targeted by cocaine traffickers from the west - Colombia-and heroin smugglers in the east- Afghanistan," the report said. "This threat needs to be addressed quickly to stamp out drug-related crime, money-laundering and corruption, and prevent the spread of drug use that could cause havoc across a continent already plagued by other tragedies."
The cultivation, production and abuse of almost every kind of drug around the world-cocaine, heroin, cannabis and amphetamine-type stimulants-had stabilised overall. "Progress made in some areas is often offset by negative trends elsewhere," wrote Costa. "But overall, we seem to have reached a point where the world drug situation has stabilised and been brought under control."
With some 160 million annual customers, cannabis provides the largest illicit drug market by far. According to UN estimates, global cannabis herb production eased by some 6 percent to 42,000 tonnes in 2005 from a year earlier. "For the first time in years, we do not see an upward trend in the global production and consumption of cannabis," Costa said.
Cocaine production has remained largely stable over the past few years. It was estimated at 984 tonnes in 2006 amid signs of a drop in cultivation in Andean countries, especially Colombia. Global output of amphetamine-style stimulants was estimated to have nudged down by 2 percent to 478 tonnes in 2005.