House Chair, Cope welcomes the debate on this topic. Our view is that South Africans inside and outside Parliament must unite in action against drug trafficking, human trafficking, the proliferation of illegal guns and cross-border terrorism, as well as poaching in the Kruger National Park and abalone poaching in exchange for drugs.
Today, we have 238 days and nine hours left until the most important sporting event in the world, the 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup, takes place. This event will put a huge strain on our public resources and on our society. Our nation has a collective responsibility to ensure that organised crime syndicates are stopped before, during and after the games. Let us remind ourselves of what nations in the world are faced with today. If the world, our continent and the frontline states fail to stop human trafficking, our future will be bleak.
We need a strong police force that maintains effective and professional co- operation with Interpol. We must establish regular vetting of police and justice employees working on this front.
If the world's nations, our continent's nations and the SADC frontline states and their people fail to co-operate in closing their borders and their ports of entry to druglords, then our collective future will perish. We will fail our future generations in that our countries will be semi- owned by the world's drug syndicates.
Let us briefly remind ourselves about what is happening around the world. There are three interrelated challenges that stand out in the drug problem: the cultivation or the production of drugs; the consumption of drugs; and the trafficking of drugs in which people become the slaves of and jailbirds for druglords.
It is in handling all of these challenges that we need the full co- operation of the nations of the world. In cultivation, the report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime suggests that, in 2006, cultivation increased by 33%, with the top three leading countries being Columbia, Afghanistan and Peru. In consumption, about 200 million people of the global population between the ages of 15 and 64 years use drugs. With cannabis leading the consumption, close to 160 million people, or 3,8% of the population between the ages of 15 and 64, are involved.
In 2003, the money that exchanged hands amounted to US$321 billion in retail, US$94 billion in wholesale and US$12,8 billion in production. The regions leading the pack are North America, Europe, Oceania, Africa and South America.
In trafficking there is a huge problem and there are six special drugs that are high on the agenda. What we require is an intelligence-driven operation.
We must understand that drug cultivation thrives on instability, corruption and poor governance. There is thus a need to strengthen the rule of law. Drug production thrives on demand. Drug control needs international commitment.
The concept of shared responsibility should be accepted universally and be implemented internationally between the producing and consuming states, regionally among neighbouring states and nationally among sectors of society.
For this to succeed, all of us will have to assume our share of that responsibility to improve the public health and public security across the world. I thank you.