Posted on 09/23/2003 3:41:41 PM PDT by Libloather
UN Sounds Alarm Over 'Brain-Killing' Drugs
Tue Sep 23,11:34 AM ET
By James Crawford
ROME (Reuters) - Party drugs like Ecstasy and amphetamines have overtaken heroin and cocaine as the fastest-growing global narcotics menace, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
In a report unveiled in Italy, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime estimated more than 40 million people around the world had taken synthetic drugs in the last year, more than the combined number of cocaine and heroin users.
"These are terrifying narcotics because they are subtle -- they kill the brain rather than the heart," said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the Vienna-based body.
"I call these drugs the 'public enemy number one'...Youngsters just don't know the risks they run," he told Reuters in an interview.
Ecstasy abuse spiraled by 70 percent and amphetamines, such as speed, by 40 percent between 1995 and 2001. By contrast, cocaine and heroin abuse worldwide grew less than 1 percent each.
The Netherlands is the largest Ecstasy producer, accounting for 23 percent of laboratory seizures in 2000-2001, the report said. Abuse is highest in East and Southeast Asia, in countries such as Thailand, followed by Europe and Australia.
Costa said organized crime groups had flooded into the synthetic drugs industry, which is worth around $65 billion a year with profit margins upwards of 3,000 percent.
"Why buy cocaine from Colombia or heroin from Afghanistan and transport it via sea and air and across borders when you can just make synthetic drugs across the street?" he said.
DANGER BY STEALTH
The report showed that seizures of amphetamine-type stimulants had risen to 40 tons in 2000-2001 from four tons in 1990-1991. Costa said these were an accurate indicator of growing consumption, and blamed the rise on huge misconceptions about the risks of synthetic drugs.
Since the global anti-AIDS push of the 1990s, drug users have seen heroin as a dirty, dangerous narcotic and turned to "cleaner," synthetic options they think are safer, Costa said.
"The problem is that few people die from using synthetic drugs. There are no scary headlines of people dying of overdoses. Instead, there is a slow mental deterioration -- danger by stealth."
Amphetamines cause dependence and psychosis, while Ecstasy may speed up the aging process and the onset of Alzheimer-type symptoms, the organization said.
Costa said synthetic drugs were seen as an almost acceptable feature of a party culture.
"The setting isn't in the dark alleys and needles of heroin use, it's in the disco," he said.
Hell - Squirrel Nut Zippers
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