FACTBOX: U.N. Global Drugs Trade Report

Smugglers are increasingly using trains from Russia to Belarus, Poland and Ukraine to bring heroin into Western Europe.

The United Nations' International Narcotics Control Board published its annual report on Thursday.

Here are some of the key points:

AFRICA

- West Africa has become one of the world's main hubs for cocaine smuggling from South America to Europe. South American cartels have set up "front" businesses in the region to provide a cover for their presence there. - The spread of cocaine trafficking through the Sahel region "poses a serious threat to stability and development".

- The continent accounts for an estimated 26 percent of global cannabis production.

NORTH AMERICA

- The United States has seen a large rise in the number of people who abuse prescription drugs. After cannabis, prescription drugs are the most commonly abused substances.

- Canada has become a major manufacturer and exporter of ecstasy. It is the main source of the drug in the United States.

- Mexico faces unprecedented violence from drug cartels. The number of murders, including of senior federal police officers, has more than doubled.

SOUTH AMERICA

- Cultivation of the coca bush, the raw material for cocaine, rose by 27 percent in Colombia in 2007. The country continues to be the world's biggest producer of coca leaf.

- Venezuela, one of the main areas for drug smuggling from South America, uncovered 180 airstrips used for trafficking and destroyed 90 of them.

- Colombia destroyed 153,000 hectares of coca bush with crop-spraying planes and a further 67,000 hectares by hand. Armed gangs used landmines to try to protect their fields.

EUROPE

- Europe is the biggest market for cocaine and the second largest for heroin.

- Cannabis is the most widely used drug in Europe. About seven percent of the population has tried it in the last year.

- Smugglers are increasingly using trains from Russia to Belarus, Poland and Ukraine to bring heroin into Western Europe.

ASIA

- Opium production in Afghanistan fell to 7,700 tons in 2008 from a record 8,200 tons the year before.

- Cannabis and opium poppy cultivation appears to be rising in Lebanon's Bekaa valley.

- Traffickers are increasingly exploiting the situation in Iraq to smuggle drugs, mainly into countries on the Arabian peninsula.

OCEANIA

- Parcel post remained the most common way of trying to smuggle drugs into Australia.

- Drug smuggling from Canada to Australia has risen. Australian officials have seized cocaine, ecstasy and methamphetamine from a sea cargo container.