By Paul Richardson

BLANTYRE, Sept 4 (Reuter) The Southern African Development
Community (SADC) will launch a strategy early next year aimed at
curbing the growing illicit drug problem in the region, SADC advisor
Bjorn Franzen said on Thursday.

Addressing a media briefing at a SADC conference in Blantyre, Malawi, Franzen
said he hoped that at the same time a protocol on illicit drugs in the region
would be ratified by the bulk of the 12member states.

Zambia and Mauritius are the only two countries in the region who have
ratified the protocol which defines procedures for controlling drug flows
while the other countries' ratification has been held up largely due to
bureaucracy, he told Reuters.

``Illicit drugs have massive implications for social and economic development
in the region,'' Franzen said, adding that one of the prime concerns in the
region was the role of drugs in the spread of the deadly disease AIDS.

Citing the fact that one in three pregnant mothers in Botswana were HIV
positive the virus which causes AIDS Franzen said illicit drugtaking
led to irresponsible sexual practices which contributed to the spread of the
disease.

``Also in Malawi for instance, one in five people are HIV positive. When
those people start dying, it will have a major impact on the national psyche,
which could result in more people resorting to drugtaking,'' he said.

He said that while unreliable statistics made it difficult to assess the
problem of drugtrafficking in the region, trends over the last five years
indicated an alarming increase in the use of illicit drugs.

He cited the growing number of SADC citizens who were being arrested for
drugtrafficking outside the region as an indication of the problem.

``We have to stop it before it gets out of control,'' he said. Franzen said
the strategy would propose the establishment of national coordination bodies
which would involve the police, customs officials, courts, the media and
schools, among others.

``It is a multisectoral problem. All sectors of society must be involved,''
he said.

These national bodies, which were already being established in South Africa
and Malawi, would then be coordinated at a regional level with the primary
aim of reducing supply and demand in the drug industry.

SADC comprises Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique,
Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.