Stranica 1 [1]
X.As NOwO-e for November 1952-6
THE PROBLEM OF NARCOTICS.
It 4s a weli-known fact, though statistics are lagging,
that in all the free world, but more especinily in the Dollar areas
the trede in narcotics has increased in a very large measure. Old
traders find supplies much easier to get, shortages rarely occur
for them, and in many instances the prohibitive prices of the past
have been lowered in such a manner, that while they are still extre
mely high, they nevertheless have reached a price level in which
many of them - especially the derivates of Opium, Morphium and
Heroin - are within the reach of entirely new classes, such ag
Students and lower middle class elements.
This sudden inerease in the supplies, this increasing
improvement. in the way of distribution and in the financing of the
black market in Narcotics, has awakened interest not only in the
official Asenecies which are supposed to sombat this threat, but
also in the Intelligence Services of the free nations. It has
been obvious for a certain time, that besides the old well-known
private rings of Narcotics, which have been operating for many deca¬
des with varying success, and which have been loging slowly and
steadily ground in the face of rising international vontrol, a new
and more powerfully sinister force has taken hand, It 1s today
no more a secret to Intelligence Men, th,t the renewed threat of
Narcotics against the health and economy of the free countries
4s vastly greater than at any time in the past - despite the fact
thet the new organization is still only at the beginning of its
operetiongs.
In order to understand what is going on, there must be
a little report on past facts. Narcotics come from three clases
of products : Opium, Coea lesf/ and Hemp. Opium, from which is made
Yorphium and Heroin is grown primefily in the USSR, China, and
then ín all of South East Acie, India, Iran, Turkey, Greece,
Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Argentina, Coca Leaf, from which Coeain
{is made, is mostly erom in Bolivia; Peru and Columbia. There is
finally the Indian H.mp, from which come Hasheesh and Marijuana,
The denger of the Nareotics to international health have
calied for world action since a longtime. The first Conference for
World Action was called already im 1909 in Shanghai. Since then
eight such Conventions were madé and at present the United Nations
Gommssion on Narcotic Drugs, of which the Central Commission for
the Surveyance of the T ade in Opium in Geneva is the most important
part, is working on a Ninth International agreement in the hope to
meet the threat. For the present operations in the fight against
Narcotics the most important International agreements are the Ge¬
LY.