Drugs report paints gloomy global picture

Subject

The 2018 World Drug Report.

Significance

The 2018 World Drug Report produced annually by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) shows negligible progress in achieving institutional goals of reducing global drug production, trafficking and use. Historic highs have been recorded in use levels, in cocaine manufacture and in opium poppy cultivation and heroin production.

Impacts

• The international community will remain divided on global drugs strategy.
• Evidence of ongoing failure to meet targets will reinforce divergent trends of liberalisation and repression.
• Repressive criminalisation strategies will undermine goals such as that of ending HIV/AIDS by 2030.