Drug crime and criminalisation threaten progress on MDGs.

In preparation for the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Summit, secretary-general Ban Ki-moon declared on this year’s International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Traffi cking that “we must recognise the major impediment to development posed by drug abuse and illicit traffi cking”, and urged that: “our work to achieve the MDGs and fi ght drugs must go hand-in-hand”. Antonio Maria Costa, executivedirector of the UN Offi ce on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told The Lancet that if the many cross-cutting, multidimensional issues about drugs and crime are not addressed, many MDGs will not be met in various countries. The eff ect of the illicit drug trade, which constitutes the major part of global organised crime “is high on the international agenda”, Costa notes, and a fundamental concern is the “vicious cycle” of drug production and traffi cking, poverty, and instability. “22 of the 34 countries least likely to achieve the MDGs are in the midst—or emerging from—confl icts, located in regions that are magnets for crime and violence.” In the report The Globalization of Organized Crime, UNODC notes that cocaine traffi cking from Central America through west Africa, and heroin corridors from Afghanistan through central and west Asia are linked with violence, corruption, and increased local drug-use problems. Central and west Asia are experiencing an “increasing presence of insurgents and terrorists funded mainly by the drug trade”, Costa explains, while in west Africa, drug cartel soldiers are paid in drugs, which tend to be sold locally. Thus, addiction is spreading to developing countries, and there are fears that this will further threaten health-related MDGs, especially in Africa, he says. To respond, Ban spoke of the need to promote development in regions where drug crops are grown, and increase eff orts against corruption and organised crime. Costa urges that “the MDGs are the most eff ective antidote to crime, while crime prevention helps to reach the MDGs”. But voices from many quarters, including more than 17 000 signatories of the Vienna Declaration,