ONE IN 10 JAMAICAN FLIERS IS A DRUG MULE

UN Report Warns of Risk to Smugglers

A UN report will this week claim that one in 10 of all passengers on
flights from Jamaica is smuggling drugs.

Publication of the report follows similar figures released last year
by British police and Customs officials, which estimated that around
20 people on each flight from Jamaica were 'drug mules'.

Phil Sinkinson, the British Deputy High Commissioner in Kingston, has
said that the figures were probably an underestimate.

Each mule, most of whom are women, is paid as much as UKP1,500 a trip
and swallows up to half a kilogram of cocaine in tiny packages.

In some British women's jails, up to half the prisoners are drug
mules. Dozens of British women are also held in Jamaican prisons after
being caught smuggling drugs for 'Yardie' gangs.

The process is fraught with risk for the mules, who can die if the
bags burst during the flight.

The report from the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) uses
the dangers to try to dispel the myth that drug trafficking can lead
to growth and prosperity in developing countries.

The INCB also raises concerns about the 'worldwide repercussions' of
the decision of the British Government to reclassify cannabis as a
Class C drug. The INCB believes that drug liberalisation in Europe and
North America makes it difficult to counter cannabis cultivation in
other regions, especially Morocco.

The report will accuse advocates of cannabis legalisation of
misinforming the public amid recent research by the British Lung
Foundation which found that smoking three joints of cannabis can be as
harmful as 20 cigarettes. Cannabis, far from being a harmless drug,
also affects the brain and can induce heart attacks, according to the
INCB.

On a global level, it dismisses the belief that the drug trade has
benefited communities in Asia and South America. It argues that the
heroin trade in Afghanistan contributed to the civil wars that plagued
the country in the 1990s.

It is estimated just 1 per cent of the money spent on drugs by users
in the developed world finds its way into the pockets of growers in
the Third World. The violence and corruption surrounding the illicit
drug trade also make it unsuited to long-term economic
development.

At the same time, some countries are highly dependent on income from
drugs: 10-15 per cent of the GDP of Afghanistan and Burma comes from
the production of opium poppies. As illicit production in these
countries grew, economic growth and living standards fell.

Neighbouring Pakistan and Iran, which reduced or eliminated poppy
cultivation, witnessed economic growth during the same period.