2009 UN World Drug report

October 21, 2009

The 2009 United Nations World Drug report, released earlier this year, notes that 2009 marks "the end of the first century of drug control (it all started in Shanghai in 1909)", and that the illicit drug market worldwide has now become a $320 billion-per-year industry. As drug-related violence in Mexico appears to continue unabated, and crackdowns in Afghanistan are being made against its massive opium crops, new efforts are also being made worldwide in methods of enforcement and treatment of recovering addicts. Collected here are a handful of recent images from the rough world of illegal drugs across the globe.


Heroin addict Ganamgul complains that his body is in pain going through withdrawal on the second day of the detox program, after 17 years of addiction, at the Kabul Drug Treatment and Rehabilitation Center September 28, 2009 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Since the center opened in May 2009 it has rehabilitated over 400 addicts in its 100 bed facility with temporary funding from International Organization of Migration (IOM) and help from the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH). The program lasts for 45 days combining both detox and rehabilitation. The center houses the 2 leading organizations that offer detox programs, Wadan and Nejat. A US Department of State report 2009 states that there are an estimated two million drug users in the country with at least 50-60,000 drug addicts in Kabul alone. (Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)


Anti-narcotic police officers destroy a cocaine laboratory in Llorente, Colombia, Wednesday, July 29, 2009. Four laboratories were dismantled in Narino state. (AP Photo)


A heroin addict holds a used syringe in his mouth after shooting up in an abandoned lot in San Juan, Friday, July 31, 2009. Some of the South American heroin trafficked through Puerto Rico en route to the United States is sold locally, which has led to an island-wide epidemic, according to health and law enforcement officials. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)


The severed head of an unidentified man lies on the hood of a car as police work the crime scene on the outskirts of Juarez, Mexico, Saturday, Aug. 8, 2009. According to police, the rest of the victim's body was found in the trunk. (AP Photo/Reymundo Ruiz)


Afghan drug addicts smoke heroin and crystal meth in the ruins of the old city of Herat on August 18, 2009. (BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images)


An addict smokes crystal meth in the ruins of the old city of Herat on August 18, 2009. (BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images)


Colombian navy soldiers lay out packages of seized cocaine in Golfo de Uraba August 20, 2009. At least 3.4 tons of cocaine were confiscated and three people were arrested, one of them injured by Colombian navy troops, during a raid in Punta Arenas, Golfo de Uraba, on the border with Panama, authorities said. (REUTERS/Navy Press)


Venezuelan National Guard members show members of the media a block of cocaine ready for shipment in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela on July 27, 2009. (REUTERS/Edwin Montilva)


Seized guns, cartridges, chargers and marijuana are displayed to the press by the army in Tijuana, Mexico, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2009. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)


A heroin addict sleeps on a chair at a bus stop in Karachi, Pakistan on July 28, 2009. Pakistan ranked second behind Iran for heroin and morphine seizures in 2007, a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released in June 2009 said. (REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro)


A mannequin dressed as a stereotypical drug smuggler is displayed at the drug museum inside the Secretary of Defense headquarters in Mexico City, Thursday Aug. 6, 2009. The museum is used by the Mexican army to teach soldiers the ways drug smugglers operate and live. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)


In a picture taken on July 3, 2009, a Thai drug addict patient walks out from a herbal steaming room at the Thamkrabok Monastery in Phraputthabat, around 140 km north of Bangkok, Thailand. Growing numbers of desperate drug and alcohol abusers - from Thailand and around the world - are visiting the extreme detox and rehab centre at Thamkrabok Monastery after failing to find other effective conventional treatments. (NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images)


A man lies dead on a dirt road on the outskirts of Tijuana, Mexico, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2009. The man was found with a bullet wound to the head. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)


Sarab village resident and opium addict Islam Beg offers his opium pipe to his grandson in the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan on July 13, 2009. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)


Women family members in the house of Islam Beg smoke opium together in the village of Sarab, Afghanistan on July 13, 2009. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)


Guadalupe Vazquez, 37, handcuffed and holding an unloaded gun allegedly used by him during a shooting against federal police officers on Monday, stands during his presentation to the media in Tijuana, Mexico, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2009. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)


A man injects heroin into a vein in his arm at an abandoned house in Ljubljana August 3, 2009. (REUTERS/Bor Slana)


Blood and bullet holes are seen on a car door after an unidentified man was murdered in Tijuana, northern Mexico, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2009. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)


Mexican soldiers prepare to burn packets of marijuana during an operation near a clandestine methamphetamine drug laboratory in Tamazula, Mexico, Monday, Aug 10, 2009. According to federal law enforcement authorities, the lab had the capacity to produce about one ton of methamphetamine, or crystal meth, each week. (AP Photo/Miguel Tovar)


Alleged drug trafficker Juan Daniel Carranco Salazar looks on as he is presented to the media in Mexico City, Monday, Aug, 10, 2009. Carranco and other suspects were detained during an operation in Cancun, Mexico. Salazar was arrested along with two associates in Cancun Monday, and soldiers seized six pistols and a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of cocaine from the suspects. He was ordered held pending investigation.(AP Photo)


Soldiers are seen through a burning pile of over a ton of marijuana, various illegal pills and cocaine being incinerated at a military base in the border city of Ciudad Juarez September 9, 2009. (REUTERS/Alejandro Bringas)


Crystal methamphetamine dries on a table as a soldier stands guard at a seized illegal laboratory in Ensenada, northern Mexico, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)


A closer view of crystal methamphetamine, drying on a table at a seized illegal laboratory in Ensenada, northern Mexico, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)


A blood-stained wall and the body of an alleged drug dealer, seen covered by a sheet after being shot to death in front of his house in Tijuana, Mexico, late Sunday, Sept. 6, 2009. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)


A man prepares to inject heroin at an abandoned house in Ljubljana August 3, 2009. (REUTERS/Bor Slana)


A drug addict, stoned on Heroin, sleeps in the shelter area provided for the homeless at the Kabul Drug Treatment and Rehabilitation Center September 29, 2009 in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)


A police officer stands guard as drugs are burned in Panama City July 31, 2009. Authorities destroyed and burned more than six tons of cocaine and marijuana confiscated between June and July. said the police press office. (REUTERS/Alberto Lowe)


The body of an unidentified man hangs from his neck under a bridge on the old Rosarito highway as authorities stand by in Tijuana, Mexico, Friday, Oct. 9, 2009. Authorities found the dead man beaten, naked and castrated, and have not identified him but believe he is Rogelio Sanchez, a Baja California state government official who went missing this week. No suspects were named. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)


A policeman puts his hand in a bag containing dozens of spent bullet casings that he helped collect from the Morro dos Macacos slum after a shootout between drug gangs, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on October 17, 2009. A police helicopter was shot down by the gangs when it tried to intervene in the battle, leaving two policemen killed and two injured in the crash. (REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes)