5.Heroin.Pdf

5 HEROIN 5 HEROIN 12,000 tons of opium may have been overproduced since 2006, enough to meet global demand for two Heroin is arguably the world’s most problematic years. drug. More users die each year from problems related to heroin use, and more are forced to seek The Taliban was able to halt virtually all cultivation treatment for addiction, than for any other illicit in 2001, though at that point substantial stocks had drug. Users develop both tolerance and physical been accumulated, and the trade in opium, which dependence, meaning that their brains adjust to the itself was not prohibited, continued. Today, poppy presence of heroin over time, requiring more to farming has been mostly confined to the south of produce the same effect and inducing severe with- the country, particularly the province of Hilmand, drawal symptoms if the drug is not taken in suffi- where the Taliban insurgency is strong. This is also cient quantities. The difference between a recreational the region where the vast majority of heroin process- dose and a fatal one is small, and variations in street ing takes place. drug purity result in many overdoses. In addition, This geographic concentration is unique. It is heroin is the drug most associated with injection, tempting to think that if control could be main- which brings about a host of acute and chronic tained over a single province in one of the poorest heath problems including the transmission of blood- borne diseases such as HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C. countries on earth, one of the world’s most intrac- table drug problems could be solved overnight. Heroin is also the illicit drug most highly associated Experience has shown, though, that it is rarely as with a single source: some 90% of the world’s heroin simple as that, and this perspective may have led to comes from opium grown in just a few provinces in a disproportionate focus on reducing production, at Afghanistan. Some 380 tons of heroin are produced the cost of efforts in other parts of the market chain. from Afghan poppies and exported all over the With heroin, as with every other issue discussed in world. This has not always been the case: while this report, it is vital to maintain an international opium has been used in the northern areas of perspective on what is truly an international prob- Afghanistan since the eighteenth century, it was lem. only in the 1980s that the country began to emerge as a key source of global supply. Myanmar, the At current levels, world heroin consumption (340 world’s leading opium producer in the 1970s and tons) and seizures represent an annual flow of 430- 1980s, saw a reduction in cultivation after 1996. 450 tons of heroin into the global heroin market. Today, Afghanistan has a virtual monopoly on the Opium from Myanmar and the Lao People’s Demo- illicit production of the drug,1 producing 6,900 cratic Republic yields some 50 tons of heroin and tons in 2009 or 95% of global supply. Due to dra- the rest, some 380 tons of heroin/morphine, is pro- matic production increases after 2005, as much as duced exclusively from Afghan opium. About 5 FIG. 103: TONS OF OPIUM PRODUCED, AFGHANISTAN AND THE REST OF THE WORLD, 1979-2009 10,000 Other countries Afghanistan 9,000 8,000 7,000 6,000 etric tons 5,000 m 4,000 3,000 2,000 1,000 0 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 Source: UNODC, Addiction, Crime and Insurgency: The transnational threat of Afghan opium Case studies of transnational threats 109 HEROIN tons are consumed and seized in Afghanistan. The drug abuse worldwide. On the Balkan route, the country seized less than three tons of heroin in ravages of opiate consumption in the Islamic 2008, a seizure rate of less than 1 %. The remaining Republic of Iran have been well documented, with 375 tons of heroin are then trafficked worldwide via one of the largest opiate user populations in the routes flowing into and through the neighbouring world. Because of their proximity to the source of countries of Pakistan (150 tons), the Islamic Repub- the trade, organized crime groups in Pakistan, the lic of Iran (105 tons) and the Central Asian coun- Islamic Republic of Iran and Central Asia have tries of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan developed strong and well-established connections (95 tons) towards their destinations in Europe, the to Afghanistan and are directly dependent on Russian Federation and Asia. Afghanistan’s opium trade to sustain their liveli- hoods. The Balkan and Northern routes are the main heroin trafficking corridors linking Afghanistan to Afghan heroin has also penetrated other markets, the huge markets of the Russian Federation (US$13 including those traditionally supplied by Myanmar billion) and western Europe (US$20 billion). opium. Among these is China, where it is now esti- Organized crime groups controlling the trade along mated that 25% of the heroin market is supplied by these routes accrue the lion’s share of this value per Afghan heroin. Afghan heroin is also trafficked to annum but some insurgent groups also partially other south and southeast Asian countries such as fund their operations by tapping into this pipeline. India, Thailand and Malaysia. At least 50% of the While organized crime groups are reaping huge heroin market in Australia is supplied by Afghan profits, their host societies are paying a heavy price. production. Finally, current opium production fig- On the Northern Route, official statistics indicate ures in Latin America and Mexico suggest that a that in the past ten years, Central Asia has significant percentage of the US heroin market may experienced the highest increase in prevalence of be supplied from Afghanistan. FIG. 104: OPIUM PRODUCTION AND GLOBAL HEROIN FLOWS, AVERAGE 2002-2008 Flows of heroin 38 Opium 5,300 Opium production (in metric tons) (in metric tons) (not actual trafﬁcking routes) 11 2,700 6-10 Transformed into heroin 1-5 500 450 Russian Federation Afghanistan Myanmar West, Central, USA, East Europe 77 Canada 88 Central Asia South-East Europe Caucasus 95 82 Turkey 95 Afghanistan China Islamic Republic 105 051 of Iran Gulf area, Middle East Pakistan India Myanmar Africa South-East Asia UNODC / SCIENCES PO Source: UNODC, Addiction, crime and insurgency: The transnational threat of Afghan opium, 2009. Oceania 110 5 FIG. 105: GLOBAL HEROIN CONSUMPTION Poppy, opium, morphine, heroin (340 TONS), 2008 The discussion of opiates markets is somewhat con- (SHARE OF COUNTRIES/REGIONS) fused by the fact that more than one product is in- volved. Heroin comes from the opium poppy, which Islamic Republic of Iran, 5% is lanced to produce opium gum, better known simply Pakistan, 6% (17 tons) China, 13% as opium. Opium is a drug in its own right, some 450 (19 tons) (45 tons) tons is consumed each year in the Islamic Republic of Others, 7% Iran alone. India, 5% (24 tons) (17 tons) Not all of the opium destined to become heroin is S&SE processed in Afghanistan, and it may be easier to ac- Africa, 7% Asia, 5% cess the necessary precursor chemicals in other coun- (24 tons) (17 tons) tries. As a result, opium or morphine (an intermediate stage between opium and heroin) may be exported for USA& Canada, 6% processing in other countries. In 2008, Pakistan and (22 tons) the Islamic Republic of Iran seized a combined 16.3 tons of morphine, most of it close to the Afghan bor- Russian der. This represents 95% of global morphine seizures Federation, 21% Europe (70 tons) that year, suggesting that much of this processing is (except Russia&Turkey), 26% taking place close to Afghanistan. (87 tons) It is also possible to make a concoction from the lefto- Source: UNODC vers of opium harvesting (known as “poppy straw”), referred to as “kompot” in the Russian Federation and other CIS countries. Collectively, the markets for opi- FIG. 106: OPIUM PRODUCTION IN um, morphine, heroin and related products are known AFGHANISTAN AND as “opiates” markets. Since opiates other than heroin MYANMAR, 2002-2008 have distinct markets with their own characteristics, Production of opium for the purposes of precision and clarity, this chapter (in metric tons) focuses on the dominant substance: heroin. 1 000 Europe is the most important market for Afghan Myanmar heroin with around 250 kg of heroin consumed on 8 000 a daily basis. Most of the profits in this market go to the international drug traffickers. Out of a global 7 000 market of perhaps US$55 billion for Afghan heroin, only about US$2.3 billion accrues to the famers and 6 000 traders in Afghanistan. A larger share goes to the 5 000 retailers in destination countries, but the bulk of the profits go to traffickers plying two main routes: 4 000 s The so-called “Balkan route”, which traverses 3 000 the Islamic Republic of Iran (often by way of Pakistan), Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria across 2 000 South East-Europe to the western European UNODC / SCIENCES PO market which commands by itself an annual 1 000 market value of about US$20 billion; and Afghanistan s The northern route, which mainly runs through 2002 03 04 05 06 07 2008 Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan (or Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan) to Kazakhstan and the Russian Source: UNODC World Drug Report, 2009 Federation where the size of the market is esti- mated to total US$13 billion per year. There is some maritime transport, especially through There is also a relatively recent variant on the Balkan the Black Sea, and air couriering is an issue, par- route, which traverses the Caucasus to both Euro- ticularly involving West Africans based in Pakistan pean and Russian markets.

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