Abuse of some illegal drugs on rise globally

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Abuse of many kinds of illegal drugs, boosted by online sales, is growing across the world, international drug regulators said on Wednesday.

“There is increasing cyber trafficking,” Akira Fujino, a representative from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, told a narcotics conference. “Drugs are offered for sale through the Internet.” He gave no figures.

He said most of those drugs, available at online pharmacies, were psychotropic substances subject to international control.

Karen Tandy, Administrator of Drug Enforcement Administration of the U.S. Department of Justice in the United States, said those drugs sold via the Internet also included painkillers that youths abused in illegitimate ways.

The U.S. accounts for about 25 million of the world’s 185 million drug abusers.

Fujino said most Southeast Asian countries had reported recent increase in the abuse of methamphetamine.

“In China, the production and sale of methamphetamine and ecstasy is on an uptrend,” said Liu Zhimin, Deputy Secretary-General of China’s National Narcotics Control Commission. “The fight against drugs is very difficult.”

There are more than 1.14 million drug users in China.

Europe saw rising use of cocaine, synthetic drugs and stimulants, while more young people were also consuming cannabis, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction’s Honorary Executive Director, Georges Estievenart, said.

“In Hong Kong, the use of synthetic drugs and ‘party’ drugs has increased. The number of cocaine users also surged last year, in line with international trends. It may be due to falls in cocaine prices,” Hong Kong security secretary Ambrose Lee said.

Philomen Choi, Chairman of Hong Kong’s Action Committee Against Narcotics, added: “Drugs are now packaged as harmless drugs. This is very alarming.”

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