Full Coverage: Narcotics

28.04.2008 Continuing food crisis in Afghanistan is frustrating people as several cities witness protests, riots and looting. While people blame government for this crisis, experts attribute it to both local and global factors. The country would need over half-a-million tonnes of imported wheat to meet the current demand.

22.02.2008 Decades of warring guns may have turned Afghanistan into a ‘collapsed state’, but the country is now on the road to recovery, says Ehsan Zia, the Afghan Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development. Community Development Councils help villagers decide their own projects while microfinance initiatives have benefited women in rural areas.

03.01.2008 In Kyrgyzstan and many other Central Asian countries, social norms bar women drug users from self-help programs, such as needle exchange, and facilitate their exploitation by other members of society.

21.11.2007 Opium accounts for more than half of Afghanistan’s GDP (at 53%) in 2007, says UNODC’s recent Afghan Opium Survey. The total export value of opiates produced and trafficked from the country hit $4 billion this year, of which three-quarters have been made by drug traffickers and insurgents, says Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of UNODC.

06.11.2007 A proposal to grow opium poppy for medical use by the Afghan Senlis Council and the European Parliament has led to outrage among narcotics experts and officials working to end the opium trade. Legalizing poppy production, they fear, will lead to further insecurity among people.

29.10.2007 Homeless children are sniffing glue on the streets of Kathmandu to ward off hunger pangs. The NGO Child Workers in Nepal (CWIN) says 95% of the approximately 900 street children in Nepal's biggest city are addicted to dendrite.

29.09.2007 A recent report on Afghanistan reveals that social and economic progress is still a distant dream for its people as they struggle amidst military conflict. Over six million Afghans remain hungry while 60,000 children are addicted to drugs, the Human Development Report 2007 claimed.

01.09.2007

18.05.2007

09.03.2007 The “Doverba” Ngo, in cooperation with the Foundation Open Society Institute Macedonia (FOSIM), announced, at the press conference held last Wednesday, March 7, the start of the pilot-project for Advocacy of Protection of Human Rights of Drug-Users.

24.10.2006 Under the framework of the “Be Part of the Solution, Not the Problem” National Campaign, series of educational and cultural events will be held in Skopje, under the motto “Attention! Prejudice Overdose”. The National Campaign aims to introduce the general public about the problem for reduction of damages and stigmatization and discrimination of drug-abusers and their families.

27.06.2006

26.06.2006 An initiative by some youth in Bangladesh has raised great hopes among townspeoeple in Mymensingh. Their success in an anti-drug campaign has drawn attention of all including local public representatives and police officials.

20.06.2006 The Macedonian Network for Reduction of Drug-Abuse (MNRDA), led by non-governmental organizations “Trust” (Doverba), “HOPS-Healthy Living Options Skopje”, and “Pasage”, protested the suspended process for dispersion of centres for prevention and treatment of drug-addicts in Skopje. The organizations claim that the continued postponement of the opening of the centres further jeopardizes the health of a huge number of addicts.

30.05.2006 On the occasion of May 31, the World No-Tobacco Day, the Union for Prevention of Alcoholism, Nicotinism and Drug-Abuse of Macedonia and "Opstanok" environmental association demanded the urgent adoption of a National Programme for Prevention of Addictions, which will contribute to the state moving the focus of its activities from treatment of consequences to prevention.

20.03.2006 According to a recent study conducted by the north-east Indian state of Mizoram and civil society organisations, the incidence of sexual and physical torture of minors has been rising alarmingly in the state. This hidden problem could develop into a major social crisis in the state.

22.02.2006 Two de-addiction NGOs, Serenity Foundation and Hope Trust, based in the city of Hyderabad, India, have ventured for the first time to extend the alcohol and drug de-addiction residential programmes exclusively to women addicts. Puja S Navin reports in The Hindu.

13.02.2006 Sitting in his neighbour's swirling field of poppy, wearing dusty clothes, farmer Abdul Qauom, 32, is keen to find an alternative crop that will earn him a living after his two hectares of opium fields were recently destroyed by state security forces, in line with government policy.

03.02.2006 Jeff Zimbalist wanted to make a film “about communities that succeed, that overcome great diversity.” He’s done it, reports Daniel Nelson.

02.02.2006 Afghans welcomed further pledges of support from international donors at a key conference in London this week, but called for further government reforms to fight widespread corruption, opium trade and poverty.