Action plan adopted in Vienna to require further reduction of drug production, abuse

VIENNA, March 12 (Chinese media) -- The 52nd Session of Commission on Narcotic

Drugs adopted a Plan of Action at the conclusion of its two-day high-level

segment on Thursday, requiring significant reduction of drug production and

abuse in the next decade.

The 34-page Plan of Action appeals also that the social and public

sanitation institutions should be strengthened so as to more effectively combat

drug and related crimes.

In view of the development of the current world drug problem and the

efforts achieved worldwide in drug control in the past decade, intense debate

between different countries on issues including whether another Plan of Action

on drug control should be adopted and how to plan future goals of drug control

had already begun before the meeting.

At this high-level segment, the delegates widely believed that since the

Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on drugs adopted the

Political Declaration in 1998, the international community has made great

efforts, but the worldwide drug problem is still spreading. While the growth of

traditional drug production and abuse of has been arrested, new types of drugs

are quickly flooding.

In addition, as admitted by Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, although the drug situation has been

improved in the United States, the European Union and Oceania countries in the

past decade, it is sharply deteriorating in some countries and regions in South

Asia, Southeast Asia and West Africa.

A report released by the European Commission before the meeting in Vienna

showed that in the past decade, the international community has only made "minor

achievements" in combating drug abuse and trade, and the overall drug control

situation worldwide has made almost no improvement.

Many countries believe that the drug problem is still posing great threat

to the international community, and the international drug control tasks are

lasting and tough, requiring the international community to strengthen

cooperation and coordination.