Good afternoon Distinguished Honorable Representatives from the Parties to the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products; guests from International Organizations; Diplomatic Core, and observers who have joined us today.
Madame President, I embrace the proper Greetings made by the Master of Ceremony.
On behalf of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, I would like to welcome you all to Panama for the Third Meeting of the Parties of the Protocol.
This meeting comes at a time of increasing cooperation between UNODC, the Protocol Secretariat, and the World Health Organization, more broadly to address the scourge of illicit tobacco and its impact on public health. UNODC recognizes that the illicit trade in tobacco is a serious form of organized crime found the world over, and that international cooperation is essential to address this challenge.
Like other forms of organized crime, tobacco trafficking fuels corruption, undermines development, and generates instability wherever it is found. Comparable to illicit drugs, it poses a direct challenge to public health. But unlike many of the areas in which we work, the illicit tobacco trade represents the dark side of a multibillion-dollar legal industry that profits from addiction.
This unique aspect brings with it both challenges and opportunities. On the one hand, it is well established that the legal industry, with its vast resources, is an integral part of the illicit market. The tobacco industry represents a formidable foe. As a legal activity, the share of the population that uses tobacco is generally much higher than that which uses illicit drugs, providing a more distributed and dependable source of income for organized crime groups. On the other hand, the visibility of the legal industry allows us to understand the issues more clearly, than with markets that are entirely clandestine.
At present, UNODC does not have a global programme focused on illicit tobacco. It has only begun, as of the end of last year, to conduct research in this area in cooperation with the Protocol Secretariat. But our colleagues who provide technical assistance to border control officials in both sea and airports, encounter tobacco trafficking on a regular basis, and recognize that it represents a major component of illicit trade in general. There is therefore much to be gained by the sharing of experience and expertise between UNODC and the tobacco control community.
For example, many of the delegates assembled here today are experts in public health or public finance and may lack experience with the measures needed to address criminal activity. But UNODC has learned that each illicit market is grounded in the unique qualities of contraband concerned, and there it would be impossible to discuss tobacco trafficking without making use of the vast expertise that resides in your community. And the truth is, more progress has been made globally in the area of tobacco control than has been made in the area of illicit drug control.
According to the World Health Organization, while tobacco use is rising among some groups, especially in poorer countries, the global prevalence of current tobacco smoking among people aged 15 years and older declined from 27% in 2000 to 17% in 2020 and is projected to decline further to 15% by 2025. You should all be proud of this progress. In contrast, global annual prevalence of illicit drug use among people aged 15 years and older has risen from about 4.2% in the late 1990s to about 5.1% in 2023.
UNODC situates itself in the security cluster of United Nations operations, and therefore is particularly concerned about the role tobacco trafficking plays in conflict finance. This role has been highlighted in several United Nations reports but has never been researched as a discrete phenomenon globally. As a criminal commodity with widespread use and huge turnover, especially in some developing regions, illicit tobacco may rank among the leading sources of funds for non-state armed groups ranging from insurgents to street gangs. We cannot afford to remain ignorant of its scale and impact.
Under the present Secretary General, the agencies of the United Nations have committed to delivering as one, lending our support and expertise to one another. The topic of illicit tobacco is one ideally situated for this sort of cooperative endeavour. It is at once, a crime topic, and a health topic. This is our first opportunity to attend the Meeting of the Parties of the Protocol as an observer, but it is unlikely to be our last.
I wish you well in your deliberations.
Thank you very much.