TALLINN - The 2005 U.N. narcotics report highlighted Estonia as one of the leading producers of amphetamine in Europe.
The newly published report names Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland as the largest producers, and points at Bulgaria, Estonia and Lithuania as other key players in the secret production of the drug, the Postimees daily reported this week.
Estonia is also listed together with Germany, Ireland, Lithuania and Poland as countries where the use of amphetamine among schoolchildren is, according to surveys, the most widespread. The number of users makes up between 5 and 7 percent in these countries compared to less than 1 percent in other European Union members.
Central criminal police adviser Mart Palo, who for years has led the fight against drugs, said that the U.N. report should be taken as recognition rather than negative publicity. "This means that Estonian police, with their achievements and efforts to combat the production of narcotics, have reached the world map," he said.
According to Palo, drug-related crime can only be revealed through the professional and efficient work of the central criminal police, meaning that not every narcotic-related incident is registered in the country.
This goes for the production of amphetamine as well. The Estonian police have in the past decade uncovered and wiped out 26 drug labs, most of which made amphetamine pills for the black market.
The continued destruction of laboratories shows that police have directed their attention in the right direction, Palo said.
"The problem is not necessarily nonexistent in countries that are omitted in the report, because in today's open information society, the synthesis of amphetamine is not as complicated as nuclear physics," he said.
In his words, drug production has become much more complicated, partly due to the increasing efficiency of police work and partly because criminals find it much more difficult to lay their hands on the necessary chemicals.
Although last year the central criminal police uncovered four narcotics labs, two of which specialized in synthesizing amphetamines, underground production of the drug is no longer as active in Estonia as it used to be, Palo said.
