Methamphetamine trafficking in Afghanistan and neighbouring countries is surging, according to a report published on Sunday by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
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.
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“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.
Methamphetamine, or “crystal meth”, isn’t as widely used as heroin in Afghanistan, where much of the world’s opium crop is grown, but it has the “potential” to become more severe.
That’s according to Martin Raithelhuber, an expert on illicit synthetic drugs with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
The Syrian government has been asked by the UN to explain the importing of “significant amounts” of the legally traded drug, pseudoephedrine, which can be used to make the illicit stimulant, methamphetamine.
Methamphetamine has been used in war time to heighten the attention and performance of soldiers.
Daniel Dickinson has been speaking to Werner Sipp, the President of the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board (INCB).
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