AUST TOPS UN'S ECSTASY ABUSE LIST

LINDA MOTTRAM: Australia, the UN says, has the highest level of ecstasy
abuse in the world. It's one of the findings in the first assessment by the
UN's Office on Drugs and Crime of the use of ecstasy and amphetamines
around the world.

It says that abuse of ecstasy increased globally by 70 per cent in the six
years to 2001, on the latest figures available, with ecstasy labs able to
produce one million tablets each week.

The abuse of amphetamines rose 40 per cent in the same period, with one in
every 100 people around the world abusing drugs like speed.

Rafael Epstein reports.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: In clubs and pubs, at parties, at a night out with friends,
and at more events than ever before, as a proportion of population, more
Australians are taking ecstasy than in any other country in the world.

For every 1,000 Australians over the age of 14, 29 of them use ecstasy.

Howard Stead is the Chief Science Officer with the UN's Drug and Crime
Office in Vienna.

HOWARD STEAD: It is high and the abuse is spreading. I think the Australian
Government have recognised the dangers of that and this is why they are
taking the active steps to try and understand exactly how that situation is
arising, whether it be the nature of social life in Australia or a very
wide availability because of large increases in importation, either from
the region or from European sources.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: The figures Howard Stead uses are simply collected from
national governments and compared with each other taking into account
different population sizes.

HOWARD STEAD: Ecstasy is a little bit of a surprise. The methamphetamine
perhaps not. Australia has always had the long-term problem of amphetamines
abuse.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Your report says that organised crime groups are moving
very heavily into the synthetic drugs industry because they don't then have
to import things, they don't have to run those risks.

HOWARD STEAD: Exactly, yes. They would still have to import some of the
precursor chemicals. There is evidence of, in fact seizures of chemicals
coming into Australia which could be used for illicit manufacture of drugs
like ecstasy.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Is it as much about the changing nature of popular music
and what people do when they go out, as it is about the availability of the
drugs?

HOWARD STEAD: I think it is and in fact the weakening of the so-called
cultural barrier is actually the first point that we make. That today,
whether it's for social use, keeping themselves awake, for partying, there
is a more general acceptable of drugs as a part of culture.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Is that enough of a reason for ecstasy abuse to increase 70
per cent between 1995 and 2001?

HOWARD STEAD: That and a larger export if you like of the drugs from Europe.

If you go back 10 years, the ecstasy problem was largely a European problem
and so what we have here is also a larger involvement of international
organised crime and a spreading of these drugs around the world.

LINDA MOTTRAM: Howard Stead, from the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime,
speaking to Rafael Epstein.