CANNABIS DEALERS TRADE ON INTERNET

DRUG-DEALERS who produce homegrown cannabis and trade over the
Internet have emerged alongside Colombian drug barons and Afghan
warlords as players in the international drugs market.

According to the annual report of the International Narcotics Control
Board, the United Nations drugs watchdog, a new and dangerous trend of
very potent homegrown cannabis is being pushed in Western Europe and
finding its way into schools.

The report called on Britain and The Netherlands to take action
against the spread of websites "offering to sell and deliver quickly,
to almost any destination in the world, potent varieties of cannabis".
It said that increasing tolerance towards cannabis was misplaced
because the homegrown drug was often far stronger than the imported
variety.

In Britain, 25 per cent of 13-year-olds surveyed admitted that they
had taken illegal substances, usually cannabis. Similarly in France,
one third of secondary school pupils had experimented with the drug,
as well as 69 per cent of juveniles attending "techno" parties in Germany.

The report will make depressing reading for governments all over the
world trying to fight the spread of hard drugs such as heroin and
cocaine. Hamid Ghodse, a member of the board, said that the global
drugs market had an estimated annual turnover of at least UKP250
billion and singled out Afghanistan as a country whose economy was
almost entirely dependent on profits from drugs.

Most countries are bound by international treaty to combat the drugs
trade, but 75 per cent of heroin is produced in areas of Afghanistan
controlled by Taleban, the militant Islamic movement.

Persuading Taleban to stop its production, estimated at a record 4,600
tons last year, is almost impossible since the movement is recognised
only by three foreign governments and depends heavily on the sale of
heroin to finance its civil war against the country's former Government.

"The commitment of the Taleban in Afghanistan to ban opium poppy
cultivation and heroin manufacture remains questionable," the report
said.

The battle against cocaine is having little more success. Although the
International Narcotics Control Board reported successes in halting
illegal coca crops in Bolivia and Peru, output has increased in
Colombia, the world's largest cocaine producer. According to the
latest statistics, cultivation of coca in Colombia has risen by up to
30 per cent, with much of the production in rebel areas outside
government control.

The US Congress is considering a UKP1 billion package to accelerate
its coca crop-spraying operation as well as supplying 30 more
helicopter gunships, used to protect crop-spraying planes from ground
fire.

Colombia's dominance as a drugs centre has had a destabilising effect
on the region, where countries are being used to launder money or as
conduits for export markets in North America and Europe.

"Haiti has emerged as the main transit point for smuggling cocaine
from Colombia through the Caribbean corridor and into the United
States," the report said.