World Drug Report and UNODC

IASbaba

July 7, 2020

Part of: GS Prelims and Mains II and III – Role of international organizations; Security issues

In news:

According to the latest World Drug Report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) –

India in top five (fourth position) in terms of seizure of opium in 2018.
Opium seizure – Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan were the top 3 countries.
India was at the 12th position in the world in terms of heroin seizure.
Heroin seizure – Iran, Turkey, United States, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Global area under opium poppy cultivation declined for the second year in a row in 2019.
Despite the decline in cultivation, opium production remained stable in 2019, with higher yields reported in the main opium production areas.
Asia is host to more than 90% of global illicit opium production and the world’s largest consumption market for opiates.
Asia accounted for almost 80% of all opiates seized worldwide in 2018.
Outside Asia, the largest total quantity of heroin and morphine was seized in Europe (22% of the global total in 2018).

Do you know?

Heroin is manufactured from the morphine extracted from the seed pod of opium poppy plants.
Opium is illicitly produced in about 50 countries.
However, close to 97% of the total global production of opium in the past five years came from only 3 countries.
84% of the total opium was produced in Afghanistan.
Myanmar accounts for 7% of the global opium production, and Laos accounted for 1% of the opium production.
Mexico accounts for 6% of the global opium production, while Colombia and Guatemala account for less than 1% of global production.

Pic: Opium Cultivation

Important Value Additions

About United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

UNODC is a United Nations office that was established in 1997.
It is a member of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group.
The office aims long-term to better equip governments to handle drug-, crime-, terrorism-, and corruption-related issues.
These are the main themes that UNODC deals with: Alternative Development, anti-corruption, Criminal Justice, Prison Reform and Crime Prevention, Drug Prevention, -Treatment and Care, HIV and AIDS, Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling, Money Laundering, Organized Crime, Piracy, Terrorism Prevention.