Eradication campaign cuts down 10% of cannabis output, official

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Moroccan permanent representative to the UN in Vienna Omar Zniber said that the cannabis-planted land has decreased by 10% in Morocco.

Based on a study jointly conducted by the Kingdom and the UN office on Drug and Crime (UNODC), Zniber further added that Cannabis output was cut by 10% from 109,000 tons in 2003 and 98,000 tons in 2004.

At the 49th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs held in Geneva on March 13-17, Zniber expounded in a presentation before the session the new efficient strategy to fight cannabis growing. He called on the International Community to enhance cooperation to eradicate the plague and help achieve an alternative development to the drug.

Zniber said fighting cannabis-growing is a national priority, taking into account the means of the country to adapt the strategy to the problem specificities, stressing the efforts made to eradicate cannabis production.

In 2005, a vast eradication campaign has helped erase more than 4,000 hectares of cannabis, resulting in freeing several regions from the plant, including Larache and Taounate provinces, said Zniber. He added that the statistics about the results obtained are regularly sent to the UNODC and the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB).

In cooperation with the World Health Organisation, the Health Ministry has recruited and trained more than 110 pharmacists to conduct the control, through tight management, of psychoactive drugs and other similar chemical substances, Zniber said.

He also spoke of the various development programmes designed to replace cannabis-growing, especially in northern Morocco. He regretted, however, the little assistance extended at the international level to stimulate alternative projects to eradicate the drug.

The Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) is the central policy-making body within the United Nations system dealing with drug-related matters. It analyses the world drug situation and develops proposals to strengthen the international drug control system to combat the world drug problem.

In 1991, the UN General Assembly established the Fund of the United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) and expanded the mandate of the Commission to enable it to function as the governing body of UNDCP. UNDCP is administered as part of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) is the independent and quasi-judicial monitoring body for the implementation of the United Nations international drug control conventions. It was established in 1968 in accordance with the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (1961). It had predecessors under the former drug control treaties as far back as the time of the League of Nations.