Antonio Maria Costa

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Antonio Maria Costa is an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, appointed in May 2002 to the positions of Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Director-General of the United Nations Office in Vienna (UNOV).

An Italian native, Costa was born June 16, 1941. He holds a:

Degree in political science from the University of Turin (1963);
Degree in mathematical economics from the Moscow State University (1967); and
Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley (1971).

His career history is as follows:

1969 to 1983: Senior economist in the United Nations Department of International Economics and Social Affairs.
1983 to 1987: Under-Secretary-General at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
1987 to 1992: Director-General for Economics and Finance at the European Commission.
1992 to 2002: Secretary-General of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
2002 to present: Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Director-General of the United Nations Office in Vienna (UNOV).

In June 2006, Costa made implied criticism of Britain's decision to downgrade cannabis from a Class B drug to Class C, stating that countries "got the drug problem they deserved" if they maintained inadequate policies. He went further and seemed even to question the democratic right of nation states to determine their own drug policy, stating "it is fundamentally wrong for countries to make cannabis control dependent on which party is in government." Citing more potent strains and increased "cannabis-related health damage", Mr. Costa proclaimed that "the harmful characteristics of cannabis are no longer that different from those of other plant-based drugs such as cocaine and heroin." [1] [2]

The United Nations' anti-drugs chief denounced March 9, 2008 celebrities such as pop star Amy Winehouse and supermodel Kate Moss, saying that their alleged drug use was helping devastate West Africa.[3]

Costa was reported to repeatedly avoid to answer the question of Dutch psychatrist Frederick Polak why cannabis use in the netherlands seems to be lower within the country (where it is freely available) than in neighboring countries.