A panel of experts called Thursday for minor drugs offences to be decriminalised in west Africa, where trafficking, consumption and production is undermining development and causing a public health crisis. The West Africa Commission on Drugs (WACD) said current policies were fuelling corruption in a region where the cocaine trade alone, estimated at $1.25 billion (920 million euros) a year, dwarfs the combined budgets of several countries. “We call on west African governments to reform drug laws and policies and decriminalise low-level and non-violent drug offences,” commission chairman Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president of Nigeria, told reporters in Dakar. “West Africa is no longer just a transit zone for drugs arriving from South America and ending up in Europe but has become a significant zone of consumption and production.
