COCAINE STILL MINOR PROBLEM IN FINLAND

"Cocaine presents a new threat to Finland that has been anticipated for a
few years now", says Central Criminal Police special investigator Tuija
Hietaniemi.

Fortunately, on the global scale, the problem in Finland is still minute.
In 2003 police seized just over a kilogram of cocaine in 43 separate
confiscations.

For the sake of comparison, according to the American Drug Enforcement
Agency (DEA), in the United States no less than 61,594 kilograms of cocaine
was confiscated in 2002.

Finland's biggest drug-related problem at the moment is cannabis. In 2003
over 400 kilos of hash and other cannabis products were impounded.

According to Hietaniemi, cheaper imports from Estonia present the most
tangible threat to Finland's cocaine situation.

"Though drawing parallels is not without its complications, the fact of the
matter is that street prices for drugs in Estonia are lower."

The recent drop in drug prices has encouraged some Estonian users to switch
from amphetamine to "classier" cocaine, and it is feared the same trend
will now take hold in Finland as well.

A United Nations report from last summer reveals that about three percent
of the world's population, in other words some 185 million people, had used
drugs the previous year.

The number of cocaine users was 13 million, 5.9 million of whom lived in
the United States.

Drug prices have fallen steadily worldwide since the early 1990s.

In 1990, an American user paid 260 dollars per gram for his cocaine habit.
A couple of years ago the price for the same amount was 92 dollars.

According to the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) research
institute, cocaine and heroin prices are at their all-time low.

Victory in the "war against drugs" is said to be just as elusive as it was
25 years ago when the campaign was launched.