Responding to the UNODC's statement, Sir Richard said: "I challenge Yuri Fedotov, the executive director of UNODC, to point out if there is anything in their briefing paper that is inaccurate and to explain why [he should be proud of it].
Up to 4,000 migrants without travel papers can pass through Agadez every week, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
So we start with the laws and we take it from there," said Pierre Lapaque, regional representative for the UNODC, which helped draft the law.
Their contributions are largely earmarked for projects within their own borders: Colombia, for instance, now the biggest donor, pays the UNODC to run programmes to persuade farmers to grow crops other than coca.
A spokesman for the UNODC acknowledges "a significant diversification of our portfolio over the previous years" but says that all projects fall within "clear and substantiated mandates" set out by its governing bodies.UN bigwigs deny that earmarked donations give countries more power to shape policy.
In recent years India has aggressively campaigned against a proposal to license Afghan opium farmers to supply the legal medical market, in part because its own licensed opium farmers would see their business threatened.Fifteen years ago almost all funding for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) came from "major donors", dominated by America and EU countries.
So there is plenty to smile about.America and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) had pushed the communist rulers of this poor landlocked nation into a crackdown on opium cultivation.
The combination of more cultivation and higher yields has resulted in a rise of over a quarter in opium production in Myanmar just since 2012, to some 870 tonnes, "the highest since assessments by UNODC and the government began".
As the head of UNODC in Myanmar, Jason Eligh, points out, yaba is so abundant because its ingredient chemicals are readily to hand (they are also used when refining heroin from opium), and the pills can readily be produced in an "infinite volume".
Can it be that Hamid Karzai, the country's first democratically elected president, has at last begun to turn back the floral tide?Two surveys released last month by Britain and the United Nations' drugs agency (UNODC)—suggest this might be so.
This is now almost as valuable as that of the United States, which is shrinking, according to the UNODC.
