Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jun 27 2006 (IPS) – Global opium production, particularly in Southeast Asia, fell during 2005, while cocaine production was broadly unchanged compared to 2004, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which released its 2006 World Drug Report here Monday.
The two-volume report, which singled out efforts by Laos to stamp out opium production for special praise, warned that cocaine consumption in Western Europe has reached alarming levels . It also featured a special section suggesting that the world s most popular illicit drug, cannibis, may be more dangerous than previously believed.

What progress in drug control has been made could be easily reversed, particularly if farmers in major opium- or coca-growing areas are not provided d…

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Sep 12 2006 (IPS) – It is called the poor man s drug and its use soared during Argentina s economic crisis of 2002. But while cocaine sulfate, a cheap drug known here as pasta base, is literally destroying young people in the slums of this South American country, it also has its middle-class and adult users.
Victoria Rangugni, a social worker with the Intercambios Civil Association for the Study of and Attention to Drug-Related Problems, told IPS that middle-class youngsters and adults tend to use pasta base in a less visible manner and with greater self-control, reducing the health damages.

Her conclusions were based on a study she coordinated on the consumption of pasta base among middle-income users in Argentina, presented late last mo…

Emmanuel Chaco

KINSHASA, May 18 2011 (IPS) – More than 3,000 cases of measles have been recorded in the past three months in two districts of Maniema Province, in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Provincial statistics seen by IPS for the districts of Kibombo and Kindu, show that since mid-April, a measles epidemic has caused more than 15 deaths at health facilities, and three or four times as many have died at home, in cases where families did not take stricken children to medical centres.

The villages further upstream along the Congo River are the worst affected by measles, says Dr Théo Katako, interim head of the Provincial Inspectorate of the Ministry of Public Health. Meanwhile, the province was only able to organise a vaccination campaign a…

In the Philippines, under regulated advertising for tobacco products, cigarette brands have developed more creative products like packets of 10 sticks instead of the standard 20 to make them cheaper for consumers. Credit: Kara Santos/IPS

WASHINGTON, Sep 7 2013 (IPS) – Between concluding rounds of negotiations towards the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a major U.S.-proposed free trade agreement, a divisive fight has heated up over the extent to which countries should be allowed to regulate the sale of foreign – potentially far cheaper – tobacco products.

In duelling proposals offered during the latest round of negotiations, in Brunei late last month, the Unit…