The United Nations has set an objective to make significant progress towards the control and supply of illicit drugs by the year 2008. This objective can only be achieved by giving demand as much attention as supply and on the basis of regular assessments of the drug problem. This report aims to contribute to such assessments by presenting supply and demand statistics and analysis on the evolution of the global illicit drug problem. It is based on data obtained primarily from the annual reports questionnaire (ARQ) sent by governments to the United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) in 1999, supplemented by other sources when necessary and when available. The UNDCP finds these data sources limited in that the ARQ reporting is not systematic enough, both in terms of numbers of countries responding and of content, and, most countries lack adequate monitoring systems to produce reliable, comprehensive and internationally comparable data. The report includes an analysis of the current situation and tables of estimates covering production, trafficking and consumption.