Key UN Conventions and resources

Facts:

• Around 210 million people, or 4.8 per cent of the population aged 15-64, took illicit substances at least once in 2010.

• Cannabis users comprised the largest number of illicit drug users in 2010 (129-190 million people).

• The cocaine production is decreasing, due to less production in Colombia in 2010. The United States remains the biggest marked for cocaine, although consumption has decreased dramatically.

• In 2007 and 2008, cocaine was used by some 16 to 17 million people worldwide.

• 74 percent of the opium production world wide took place in Afghanistan in 2010. The production was at 3,600 tons.

• In 2008, global heroin seizures reached a record level of 73.7 metric tons.

• There is evidence for the existence of opium poppy in Europe as long ago as 4,200 B.C. and even earlier.

• There are indications that cannabis was used as early as 4000 B.C. in Central Asia and north-westernChina, with written evidence going back to 2700 B.C. in the pharmacopeia of emperor Chen-Nong

The first international conference to discuss the world’s narcotics problem was convened in February 1909 in Shanghai. This forum became known as the Opium Commission and it laid the groundwork for the elaboration of the first international drug treaty, the International Opium Convention of The Hague (1912).131