Africa’s drugs crisis stimulated by poor policy - ENACT
New York, United States (PANA) - A new research report on transnational organized crime released here Tuesday says a looming drugs crisis in Africa is being made worse by ineffective drug policy, fuelled by corruption and organised crime.
The new research was released here Tuesday by the ENACT transnational organised crime programme at a side event on the margins of the UN General Assembly meeting here.
ENACT is a partnership between the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), INTERPOL and the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC), funded by the European Union.
The research is the most comprehensive analysis to date of the illicit African drug trade, consumption patterns and African drug policy.
“African consumption of illegal drugs, including non-medical use of prescription opioids, threatens national development and is projected to become a public health emergency.
“Sub-Saharan Africa will see the world’s biggest surge in illicit drug users in the next 30 years, with its share of global drug consumption projected to double.”
But securitised responses have had unintended consequences and have done a disproportionate amount of harm for limited results achieved,” the research said.
“Prisons are overcrowded and generations of young people are disenfranchised by criminal convictions for low-level drug crimes.
“Continental drug markets continue to expand even as illicit crops are destroyed, drug labs dismantled, and drug shipments seized.”
According to ENACT, drugs have become a revenue source for terrorist organisations and crime syndicates, but African law enforcement bodies lack the institutional, technological and financial capacities to have a significant impact on drug trafficking markets”.
Researchers estimate that the number of drug users in sub-Saharan Africa will increase by nearly 150 percent in the next three decades. They forecast that by 2050 there will be an additional 14 million Africans using illegal drugs, with a total of 23 million users in sub-Saharan Africa.
“African drug policy is complex and controversial. Most drugs are still illegal across much of the continent, but there is a discrepancy in how they are policed and controlled.”
‘Drug policy in Africa today is a dynamic mix of progressive legal decisions, political conflicts and inconsistent implementation,’ says Dr Mark Shaw, Executive Director of GI-TOC.
According to him, most African policy on illicit drugs does not consider overwhelming evidence that prohibition forces drugs underground, stimulates organised crime and corruption, and fails in its response to drug users.
“The continent’s current approach to drugs does not appear to take account of a looming public health crisis,” said Eric Pelser, ENACT Programme Head at the ISS.
The new research suggests that East Africa will experience the sharpest increase in the proportion of its population using illicit drugs. West Africa is set to remain the continent’s largest regional drug market. West African drug users are projected to more than double from about 5.7 million in 2018 to 13 million in 2050. This makes the region an attractive market for the drugs trade, incentivising local production of illicit substances.
West Africa’s role has expanded as a global trafficking hub for illegal drugs, particularly cocaine, and an illegal economy has developed around the production and distribution of methamphetamines.
Illegal drug use poses a formidable law enforcement and public health problem and the African Union (AU) and its regional economic communities need to act urgently, says Pelser.
-0- PANA RA 24Sept2019
