Organized crime groups are increasingly using planting on European soil to reduce the risk of being detected at border crossings
Of that total number, 200 million also consumed cannabis.
Although these data at the global level are stable compared to the data from 2009, they are still disturbing, according to the UN agency. The increase in drug consumption in developing countries is highlighted, as well as the expansion of places for growing cannabis within Europe.
According to the report, Europe is the largest market for the illegal import of hashish, which is obtained from cannabis resin, mainly from Morocco, although the share of hashish use is decreasing and the use of the cannabis plant (marijuana) is increasing.
"Most member states of the European Union indicate that the cultivation of the cannabis plant is a phenomenon that appears to be spreading," according to the UN. It is added that, simultaneously with the increase in the areas on which it is grown, the selection of special hybrid species has also increased the strength of cannabis.
Organized crime groups are increasingly using planting on European soil to reduce the risk of being detected at border crossings, the UN adds.
"Cannabis is not as harmless a drug as some want to portray. According to medical reports, it leads to irreversible changes in the brain," said the executive director of this UN office, Yuri Fedotov, to reporters in Vienna.
A total of 200.000 people die every year because of drugs
Opium production in Afghanistan, where 90 percent of opium produced in the world comes from, reached 5.800 tons
"Countries that are in the transit or production zone are not only transit countries, but also countries where drugs are consumed," he said, citing the case of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran as examples.
Opium production in Afghanistan, where 90 percent of the opium produced in the world comes from, reached 5.800 tons in 2011. This is an increase of 61 percent compared to 2010, when the Afghan production of this drug dropped significantly due to a disease that affected two-thirds of the poppy area.
A total of 200.000 people die every year because of drugs, and 27 million of them are people who consume drugs and have problems because of it, said this UN agency, which is the data that was already given in the report from 2011.
So-called synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine remain, as in the last report, the second most used type of drug after cannabis, Fedotov said.
He expressed concern about the emergence of new drugs, and gave as an example desomorphine or the drug called "crocodile". He added that these are very dangerous drugs that can kill people in less than two weeks.
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