Nobody yet knows what the full long-term effects of taking cannabis are and legalizing it for recreational use runs the risk of trivializing the dangers for teen consumers, the President of the UN-administered international narcotics watchdog has warned.
Moves by a small number of governments to legalize the non-medical use of cannabis have led to increased consumption without explaining the potentially serious health dangers that users face from the drug, a UN narcotics watchdog said on Thursday.
More than one billion methamphetamine tablets were seized in East and Southeast Asia last year, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has warned.
The nexus between terrorism and organized crime took centre stage in the Security Council on Thursday, with experts raising fresh concerns over opportunistic alliances emerging among belligerents who share a hostility towards national authorities, and seek to exploit vulnerabilities created by the COVID-19 crisis.
Measures by governments across the world to curb the COVID-19 pandemic have led to the widespread disruption of trafficking routes for illegal drugs, mainly by air and on land, upping some prices, according to a new UN report published on Thursday.
“Multiple” airstrikes by the US military on alleged methamphetamine drug labs in a remote area of western Afghanistan earlier this year, killed or injured dozens of civilians who should not have been treated as military targets, the UN said on Wednesday.
Countries need to agree what have been described as more “granular” goals on combating illegal drugs.
The call comes in a report from the United Nations University called “What Comes After the War on Drugs – Flexibility, Fragmentation or Principled Pluralism?”
It’s designed to serve as a starting point for discussion at next year’s General Assembly Special Session on the World Drug Problem (UNGASS) in April.