U.N. WORLD DRUG REPORT SEES LESS USE OF COCAINE, HEROIN WORLDWIDE

Cocaine and heroin abuse is diminishing worldwide, the United Nations said,
in a report released Monday that also targeted Afghanistan as the provider
of more than 75 percent of the world's opium.

The report, published by the U.N. Office for Drug Control and Crime
Prevention, said that despite less cocaine and heroin use, consumption of
amphetamines grew in the 1990s, particularly in Asia, with developed
countries the main suppliers.

An estimated 180 million people worldwide were consuming drugs in the late
1990s more than four percent of all people aged 15 and above the report
said. At least 134 countries and territories were faced with a drug abuse
problem.

But overall, the area where poppy for opium is grown has been reduced and
is at its lowest level since 1988, said the report.

In Islamabad, drug control officials praised Pakistan for its success in
ending poppy production.

''Pakistan is this year's big success story,'' Bernard Frahi, regional
director of the United Nations Drug Control Program, told reporters.

From the crimson red poppy plant, opium is produced and made into heroin.
Most of the heroin produced in this region is sold in Europe and North America.

Pakistan went from a 1979 opium production level of 800 tons to a
negligible amount in 2000, said Frahi.

Among other positive developments in the 172-page report by the
Vienna-based organization:

Bolivia has reduced the area under illicit coca production by 78 percent
since 1997.

Authorities in Peru, where much of the world's cocaine traditionally
originates, have cut illicit exports of the drug by 50 percent over the
last decade.

Laos remains the world's third largest producer of opium but has cut its
output by 30 percent over the last 18 months

Opium poppy reduction in Vietnam was reduced by 90 percent over the past
decade.

Afghanistan, in contrast, has been setting records for opium production. In
1999 Afghanistan produced 4,565 tones of opium -- a world record.

The amount was down in 2000, in part because of a crackdown by the ruling
Taliban and in part because of a devastating drought, said Frahi.

The report said that a central aim of the drug agency is to phase out poppy
cultivation in Afghanistan in the next five years. It will provide
education and health facilities and employment outside agricultural sector
to realize that goal.

The most widely consumed drug worldwide remains cannabis. But heroin and
cocaine are the costliest, in terms of treatment and hospitalization and
the narcotic to which most drug-related violence is tied.

Western Europe has about 1.2 million heroin addicts; the United States
about 1 million, said the report.

Some 14 million people are estimated to take cocaine worldwide. But the
report detailed positive trends in the United States.

While cocaine remains the prime drug where treatment is needed in the
United States about 40 percent of all cases cocaine abuse has declined
strongly over the last decade, said the report

The United States nonetheless remains the world's largest market for
cocaine and responsible for almost a third of the cocaine seizures worldwide.

The report also revealed a shift in drug consumption patterns over the past
decade, with a growing tendency towards use of synthetic drugs,
specifically amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) and particularly ecstasy.

Developing countries have begun to be invaded synthetic drugs _ notably
ecstasy type drugs produced in developed areas. There has been a growth in
demand for such drugs in southeast and East Asia.

Trafficking in ATS grew more strongly than any other drug category over the
last decade. ATS seizures, excluding ecstasy, quadrupled between 1990 and
1998 in comparison to heroin or cocaine, which rose by less than 50 percent.

The North American ATS market is primarily in the United States, which
accounts for 14 percent of global seizures.

Still, the report said that use of the drug grew fastest in Europe, judged
by a 25 percent growth in police seizures over the last decade.

The latter half of the 1990s saw huge increases in trafficking of ecstasy
from Europe to North America, Australia and New Zealand, South Africa and
Asian countries. While the United States accounted for the largest ecstasy
seizures last year, most of it was of European origin.

Still, the most widely trafficked drug remains cannabis, the report said.