‘Pakistan concerned about legalisation of drugs in Western world’

Karachi

Federal Secretary of the Narcotics Control Division, Aijaz Ali Khan, on Tuesday said the government was concerned about legalisation of drugs by some European countries and US states, saying that this would put extra burden on its efforts to control smuggling of narcotics to the Western countries as around 42 percent of the world’s opiates and cannabis were smuggled out via Pakistan.

“Like many other countries, Pakistan as a transit country for the drugs smuggling suffered a lot but we made serious efforts to control this menace and prevent its smuggling and local usage. Now we are once again concerned after some countries have legalised the drug usage as it could once again put extra pressure on Pakistan”, the federal secretary said at the launching of World Drug Report 2016 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) at a local hotel.

Cesar Guedes, UNODC country representative in Pakistan, Dr Manzoor-ul-Haq, UNODC drugs and HIV/Aids advisor in Pakistan, experts from UNAIDS, several diplomats based in Karachi and people from different sections of the society attended the launching ceremony of World Drug Report 2016.

The federal narcotics control secretary also expressed concerns over campaigns by the Western countries against the capital punishment on the smuggling of drugs, saying it was an effective deterrence against the drug smuggling by many countries in the Middle East, Far Eastern Countries and Pakistan.

He maintained that the Western world was campaigning to eliminate this deterrence, which could have negative impacts on the efforts to prevent smuggling of drugs.

According to him, conviction rate in the smuggling cases by the Anti Narcotics Force (ANF) of Pakistan was 90 percent, which had proved very effective in prevention of smuggling and local drugs cartels and added that more concerted efforts were required to curb the menace of drug usage and smuggling.

He maintained that the federal government was working on a three-pronged strategy based on drug demand reduction, drug supply reduction and international cooperation, which had been proved highly successful.

Khan added that now after the 18th amendment, the role of provinces in the drug demand reduction had become vital and extremely important.

The federal official claimed that the law enforcement agencies of Pakistan had seized over 342 tonnes of drugs in 2015 amounting to over 2 billion US dollars, which showed that Pakistan’s commitment against drugs.

UNODC country representative in Pakistan Cesar Guedes said that around five per cent of the adult population, or nearly 250 million people between the ages of 15 and 64, used at least one drug in 2014, according to the latest World Drug Report 2016, which was initially released last month in Geneva, New York and Vienna by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

“Although substantial, this figure has not grown over the past four years in proportion to the global population. The report, however, suggests that the number of people classified as suffering from drug user disorders has increased disproportionally for the first time in six years”, he said.

“There are now over 29 million people within this category as compared to the previous figure of 27 million. Additionally, around 12 million people inject drugs with 14 percent of these living with HIV. The overall impact of drug use in terms of health consequences continues to be devastating,” Cesar Guedes added.

This report comes soon after April’s UN General Assembly special session on the world drug problem (UNGASS), a landmark moment in global drug policy which resulted in a series of concrete operational recommendations.

Drug use

The report states that while drug-related mortality has remained stable around the world, in 2014 there were still around 207,000 deaths reported: an unacceptably high number of deaths which are preventable if adequate interventions are in place. 

Heroin use and related overdose deaths appear to have increased sharply over the last two years in some countries in North America and Western and Central Europe. Underlining the significance of this, UNODC officials say although the challenges posed by new psychoactive substances remain a serious concern, “heroin continues to be the drug that kills the most people and this resurgence must be addressed urgently.”

Overall, opioids continue to pose the highest potential harm and health consequences among major drugs.

Cannabis, meanwhile, remains the most commonly used drug at the global level, with an estimated 183 million people having used it in 2014. By analysing trends over several years, the report shows that with changing social norms towards cannabis – predominantly in the west – cannabis use has climbed in parallel with higher acceptability towards the drug. In many regions, more people have entered treatment for cannabis use disorders over the past decade.