Free Republic

Villagers in remote areas of Badakhshan Province, north-eastern Afghanistan, have been using opium as a substitute for medicine for years. They are oblivious to the harm it can do to their health. There is no official data about the number of drug addicts in Badakhshan. However, the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) says one million people are addicted to drugs there, 45,000 of whom are women. This video short shows a women’s opium smoking session in the village of Jukhan, tucked away in mountainous Badakhshan. While efforts are being made to rehabilitate drug addicts in the village,...

VIENNA, Austria (AP) Ordinary drivers and workers who operate heavy equipment or do other hazardous jobs should be subject to random drug tests similar to the spot checks police in some countries now conduct for alcohol, the head of the U.N. drug office said Thursday. "Road testing works for alcohol _ it will work for drugs," Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the Vienna-based U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, told an international mayors' conference in Istanbul, Turkey. "Public opinion is waking up to the fact that some people are driving cars, public transport, operating heavy machinery or even flying...

VIENNA (AFP) - The United Nations gains a new weapon in its fight against corruption with the entry into force of the first legally binding international agreement against such crime. "The world will have a powerful new tool to control corruption on a scale that has never existed before," Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), said in a statement. The "Convention Against Corruption" adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in October 2003, has been signed by 140 countries after a conference in Merida, Mexico, and ratified by 38. The notion that...

VIENNA, Austria - Iran is quietly building a stockpile of thousands of high-tech small arms and other military equipment - from armor-piercing snipers' rifles to night-vision goggles - through legal weapons deals and a U.N. anti-drug program, according to an internal U.N. document, arms dealers and Western diplomats. The buying spree is raising Bush administration fears the arms could end up with militants in Iraq. Tehran also is seeking approval for a U.N.-funded satellite network that Iran says it needs to fight drug smugglers, stoking U.S. worries it could be used to spy on Americans in Iraq or Afghanistan -...

UN, OSCE agree to expand joint counter-terrorism activities VIENNA, 12 March 2004 - A two-day counter-terrorism meeting in Vienna ended on Friday with a call for greater co-operation between international, regional and sub-regional organizations in strengthening common defences against terrorism. The meeting, co-hosted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), adopted a Vienna Declaration, reaffirming the central role of the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) in the global effort to combat terrorism. The Declaration acknowledges the need to provide assistance to a large number of member states...

‘INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY MUST JOIN FORCES AGAINST TERRORISM’, SAYS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF UNODC IN STATEMENT ON TERRORIST ATTACKS IN SPAIN (Reissued as received.) VIENNA, 12 March (UN Information Service) -- Following is a statement by Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on the occasion of terrorist attacks in Madrid, Spain, on 11 March: On behalf of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, I would like to express the deepest sympathy to the people of Spain and our strong conviction -- as the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said yesterday...