RECORD OPIUM HARVEST IN AFGHANISTAN THREATENS NEW HEROIN CRISIS IN BRITAIN

- - EU agency fears glut and reversal of deaths decline.

- - UK tops cocaine abuse table for fifth year in row.

A glut of opium on the world market, fuelled by a record Afghan
harvest, threatens a new heroin crisis in Britain, the European
Union's drug agency warned yesterday. The agency's annual report also
confirms that the UK remains at the top of the European league table
of 27 countries for cocaine abuse for the fifth year in a row. The UK
accounts for 820,000 of the 4 million Europeans who have "recently
used" cocaine.

But the agency also reports that there are "stronger signals" of the
declining popularity of cannabis across Europe, especially among
British school students.

Nevertheless the drug experts say that a quarter of all Europeans - 71
million people - have tried cannabis at some time in their lives.

The heroin warning from the European monitoring centre for drugs and
drug abuse follows two record opium harvests in Afghanistan of 8,200
tonnes in 2007 and 7,700 tonnes this year. The harvests represent 90%
of the world's illicit opium production with Helmand province, the
centre of British military operations, accounting for over half of the
crop.

"While favourable weather conditions have boosted harvests, the
recurrent conflicts, because of the destruction, poverty and general
insecurity that they entail, are likely to be an important factor in
explaining the increases in opium production," says an agency study
monitoring the supply of heroin into Europe.

The EU agency says that "alternative development" measures to persuade
farmers to switch to other crops are having a very limited impact. It
says that in eastern Afghanistan insecurity, lack of water, poor roads
and increases in fuel costs have combined with declining prices for
legal crops such as onions, which may make it difficult to sustain
reductions in poppy cultivation in the future.

In Helmand, where opium poppy continues to grow in abundance, the
security situation including the threat of roadside robbery and the
proliferation of insurgent checkpoints make it sometimes impossible to
get legal crops to urban markets.

"The latest data, while showing an overall reduction in production,
point to increasing production in southern Afghanistan, in particular
in Helmand province, where around 70% was produced in 2008," the study
concludes.

The EU is worried that these record harvests threaten to end the
"slowly improving" heroin situation in Britain and across Europe and
reverse the decline seen in heroin-related deaths.

Seizures have doubled in Turkey, an important transit country, and are
20% up in Britain. The EU drug experts fear that the recent decline in
heroin-related deaths in Britain - down from 2,171 in 2001 to 1,979 in
2005 - will be halted and even reversed as a result of a glut of much
cheaper and possibly more potent heroin entering Britain. "Current
evidence does not point to an epidemic growth in heroin problems as
experienced by most of Europe in the 1990s," said the EU drugs agency
director, Wolfgang Gotz. "Nonetheless, we cannot ignore the threat
posed by the glut of heroin now available on the world market, the
concerns raised by indicators of heroin use, or signs that synthetic
heroin may be a growing problem. Vigilance is clearly required."

Britain's continuing position at the top of the league table of 27 EU
countries for cocaine abuse is based on the fact that 12.7% of young
adults aged 15 to 34 have used the drug.

Typical cocaine users in Britain are now just as likely to be poor
working class young men as wealthy City traders.

The latest school surveys show that 5% of 15- and 16-year-olds have
tried it. Cocaine use in Europe is highest in Britain and Spain. It
has stabilised in both countries in recent years but at a level that
is approaching American consumption. The increasing number of
Europeans using the drug - 4 million last year, the EU estimates -
reflects its recent growth in Italy, Denmark and Ireland.

The growing popularity of cocaine has been matched by declining use of
amphetamines.

There is encouraging news about cannabis consumption in Britain. While
the UK consistently had the highest levels of cannabis use among
schoolchildren in the early and mid-1990s in this European survey, it
has seen the sharpest decline in its popularity of any EU country.

Britain is now fourth in the Euro-league cannabis table amongst 15- to
24-year-olds, with 39.5% saying they have tried it at some time, and
12% saying they have used it in the last month.