Cocaine use takes a hit in financial crisis

The global financial crisis may have ravaged the world economy but the UN's top anti-crime official said one benefit could be to make cocaine less affordable for many wealthy European drug users.

But Antonio Maria Costa said in an interview he feared the crisis could reduce donor aid to poor West African states struggling to stop their seaboard becoming a "Coke Coast".

Costa said that while it was too early to evaluate the effect of the global banking crisis on world crime trends, it was certain to have an impact on supply and demand aspects of the international illegal drugs trade.

"There is no doubt the crisis will have an impact," he said in an interview. "It may turn cocaine into a much less desirable discretionary income expenditure," he added.

Noting that Europe uses some 40 percent of Andean cocaine, Costa said that "sniffing cocaine" has long been part of the lifestyle of many bankers throughout Europe.

Costa was in Cape Verde for a West African ministerial conference on the economic, social and political threats of drug-trafficking.

He saw less impact on established, but declining, US use.

On the supply side, Europe's attraction as a boom market for Colombian cocaine cartels could also suffer from the effects of the financial crisis on currencies.

"To the extent that the euro is now under pressure downward, and it has lost quite a significant amount, that may turn Europe into a less attractive place for export," Costa said.

At the Cape Verde meeting, Costa is presenting a UNODC report which outlines the security threat to West Africa of an estimated 50 tonnes a year of cocaine being transported through the region by Latin American drug cartels, bound for Europe where it is worth almost US$2 (NZ$3.72) billion on the street.

The UN is appealing for West African governments and their donor partners to work together to confront the cocaine-trafficking threat, which Costa said was turning the west African Atlantic seaboard into a "Coke Coast".

"Drug trafficking is perverting weak economies at their core: in some cases the value of the trafficked drugs is even greater than the country's national income," he said.

Costa said he was worried that the huge amounts of money being spent by rich donor countries in the West to shore up their banking systems in the crisis could cut back aid budgets.

"If that happens, some of the plans we put forward here, namely, assistance to strengthen border controls, improvement to the judicial system and greater availability of (anti-narcotics) hardware, all of this could be affected," he added.

At the Cape Verde meeting, ministers of the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are due to announce a regional strategy to counter drug-trafficking.

Using flotillas of small planes and fast boats, powerful Colombian drug cartels, with local allies, often in government circles, have in recent years been shipping cocaine consignments from Latin America to Europe through West African states.

Major seizures have been made in Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Mauritania and Sierra Leone and experts are also focusing on bauxite-producer Guinea as a suspected trans-shipment hub.

As attention has focused on the Guineas, experts say cocaine traffickers are already seeking out smaller states like Gambia, Togo or Benin. "Traffickers are like roaches, as soon as you shed some light, they run for cover," Costa said.

- Reuters