Department of State submits 2019 International Narcotics Control Strategy report

WASHINGTON, 29 March. - (ANA)  - The U.S. Department of State submitted the 2019 edition of the annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) to Congress today. This two-volume, Congressionally-mandated report assesses foreign governments' efforts to reduce illicit drug production, trafficking and use, as well as their work to counter drug trafficking-related money laundering. The INCSR was first published in 1986, and this edition covers calendar year 2018.

This year's INCSR stresses that the synthetic opioid-fueled drug crisis still gripping the United States represents a global problem that requires urgent international action. The report highlights not only increases in trafficking and abuse of fentanyl and other deadly synthetic opioids across the globe, but also continued growth in overseas production of cocaine and methamphetamine and rampant heroin production in Afghanistan. Reducing such drug threats will require additional commitments from partner governments, sometimes supported by U.S. assistance, to target all the links in the narcotics supplier-to-consumer chain: the cultivation and production of drugs; the interdiction of drug shipments; attention to the money trail; and reduction in drug demand.

Volume I of the INCSR, the Drugs and Chemical Control section, provides an overview of 2018 drug control efforts undertaken by nearly 70 countries. Volume II, Money Laundering, highlights the nature of drug trafficking-related money laundering – and specific vulnerabilities – in 80 countries and jurisdictions, as well as these governments' efforts to strengthen their anti-money laundering regimes.

The full text of INCSR Volumes I and II can be viewed at https://www.state.gov/j/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2019/index.htm      - (ANA) -

AB/ANA/29 March 2019 - - -