Asia, world top production base of opium, methamphetamine

BANGKOK, March 6 (TNA) - The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) reports that Asia has remained the world’s top production base of methamphetamine and opium; while Europe has delivered more illicit drugs to other regions. Narong Rattananugul, Acting Secretary-General of Thailand's Office of Narcotics Control Board (ONCB), quoted the 2012 INCB report as saying in a press conference in Bangkok on Tuesday, in which representatives from foreign embassies in Thailand and the Foreign Anti-Narcotic and Crime Community (FANC) took part, that one-fifth of poppy plantations were in East and Southeast Asia; while the lion’s share of opium-based products came from West Asia. The INCB yearly report indicated that Southeast Asia was also a major production base of methamphetamine and nearly half of methamphetamine arrests and its traffickers worldwide took place in Southeast Asia in 2010, and that the lion’s share of methamphetamine production had been in Oceania from 2001-2010. According to the acting ONCB chief, supplies of new psychotropic substances from Europe had increased, as it was easy to buy them at drugstores and via more than 690 websites in Western and Central Europe; while North America had remained as the world's largest narcotic market and posted the highest amount of people killed by narcotics. The acting ONCB chief acknowledged that narcotic problems were growing in all regions; so, prevention and suppression were necessary in all dimensions of the problems, suggesting that authorities seriously suppress narcotics at airports and along borderlines of their countries. The acting ONCB secretary-general also recommended that anti-narcotics communities along the border of Thailand and neighboring countries be developed as those done under royal projects for the sake of sustainable narcotic solutions. (TNA)