AFGHANISTAN BEHIND RISE IN GLOBAL OPIUM PRODUCTION

Responsible For 5% Hike In World's Supply

MOSCOW -- Worldwide opium production is increasing, driven by a sharp
rise in poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, the United Nations said
Friday in a report released in the capital of Russia, one of the prime
routes for Afghan opium and heroin reaching the West.

Opium poppy cultivation declined in two major producing countries,
Myanmar and Laos, the 2004 World Drug Report said. But due to the
production increase in Afghanistan and the higher yield per hectare
there than in Southeast Asia, Afghanistan has more than made up for
the shortfall. It was responsible for three-quarters of the world's
illegal opium supply, and for a five per-cent increase in the world
supply between 2002 and 2003.

Much of Afghanistan's opium makes its way to the West through
Tajikistan and Russia. Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the
UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said in Moscow that plans to remove
Russian guards from the Tajik-Afghan border were "very worrying," the
Interfax news agency said.

The report said that overall, the spread of drug abuse was slowing in
contrast to the significant growth over the past half-century. It said
185 million people -- three per cent of the global population -- had
used drugs at least once during the past year.

The report said drugs such as marijuana and hashish are used by 150
million people at least once a year, and cannabis abuse is spreading.
The second-most-popular abused substance is synthetic drugs --
amphetamine-type stimulants, with 38 million users.

Yet the number of users of legal drugs, such as tobacco and alcohol,
is much higher and much more damaging, said Costa, who was in Moscow
for a joint release of the report with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov.

As much as 30 per cent of the world's population smokes tobacco and
about five million people die of tobacco-related causes each year.

By comparison, about 250,000 people die each year due to drug abuse.