Vienna — The global narcotics market is "thriving" with production of cocaine and opium soaring and opioids wreaking havoc, the UN crime and drugs agency said on Thursday in a gloomy annual assessment. "As the report ... clearly shows, there is much work to be done to confront the many harms inflicted by drugs to health, development, peace and security, in all regions of the world," said Yury Fedotov, head of the Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), based in Vienna. He said that while "the international community is equipped to respond swiftly ... there remains an enormous need for capacity-building and technical assistance, and funding continues to fall short of political commitments." About 29.5-million people worldwide, or 0.6% of the adult population, suffered from drug-use disorders in 2015; at least 190,000 mostly avoidable deaths annually, occur mainly from opioids. In 2016, global production of opium — extracted from poppy resin and refined to make heroin — rocketed by a third...
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