cannabisnews.com: War and Drugs - Another Powder Trail War and Drugs - Another Powder Trail Posted by FoM on October 18, 2001 at 16:18:21 PT From The Economist Print Edition Source: Economist On September 10th, the day before the terrorist onslaught on New York, fresh opium was selling in the markets of Afghanistan for as much as $700 a kilo, the highest level for almost a decade. Two weeks later, prices on the streets of Jalalabad or Kandahar had tumbled as low as $100 a kilo. Since Afghan opium accounts for about 70% of the world's heroin production, western countries now fear that, besides all the other problems stemming from that benighted place, they could soon face a flood of cheap Afghan heroin. In the 1990s, when other forms of farming fell victim to an endless round of internecine wars, Afghanistan greatly increased its cultivation of opium. In 1989, the country produced nearly 1,200 tonnes. A decade later, the harvest had almost quadrupled to an estimated 4,600 tonnes. But by June 2000, in a bid for respectability, the Taliban had started to work with the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (UNODCCP), and banned the growing of opium. The ban slashed this year's harvest to a mere 185 tonnes, the lowest level in living memory and a 95% drop on the previous year. All that ended after September 11th, when the Taliban abruptly stopped co-operating with the UN. By now only a few weeks of the autumn sowing season are left, and the American-led bombing campaign—particularly heavy around Kandahar, an important opium-growing region—will have disrupted the business. The ban, too, still remains officially in force. So it is hard to predict how big next spring's crop will be. But there are signs that the Afghan government is releasing on to the international market some of the vast stockpile of opium which has been built up during a series of bumper harvests. UN officials believe that 2,800 tonnes of opium, convertible into 280 tonnes of heroin, is in the hands of the Taliban, the al-Qaeda network of militant Islamists, and other Afghan and Pakistani drug lords. On the wholesale market in Pakistan, this deadly harvest could be worth $1.4 billion. On the streets of London and Milan, processed into white powder, its ultimate value is estimated by Interpol and UN officials at between $40 billion and $80 billion. To put these figures in context, the retail turnover of the European heroin trade is estimated at $20 billion a year. UN officials say the current Afghan stockpile is enough to keep every addict in Europe supplied for three years. It is also enough to allow the Taliban and their allies to dominate the European, Russian and much of the Asian market for another two years, if they can retain control of the stockpile.The Taliban probably have several motives for releasing the stockpile now. Possibly they are selling off opium to buy weapons, or to build up their supply of hard currency. They may also want to compound the social problems of the western governments which are now their enemies. Whatever the motive, the risk for Europe is awful to contemplate.War has boosted Afghanistan's position as the world's main supplier of heroin.Afghanistan's position as the world's main supplier of heroin has been reinforced by 20 years of almost continuous war. It is a country with very little arable land; only 2.6m of its 65m hectares (250,000 square miles) are cultivated. In 1979, when the Soviet Union sent in its army, nearly 85% of the population was dependent on the rural economy. But the anti-Soviet struggle, followed by civil strife, had a disastrous effect on agriculture. A third of the country's farms were abandoned, two-thirds of its villages were bombed, and much of the rural workforce was forced by poverty, dislocation and drought to seek refuge outside the country or in cities such as Kabul and Kandahar.As the old subsistence economy gave way to a monetised one, opium emerged as one of the few commodities that could quickly be converted into American dollars—which could, in turn, be used to buy arms. Afghanistan's plunge into war also coincided with a drop in production in three other important opium-growing countries. Turkey, Iran and Pakistan all started enforcing strict drug-control laws and bans on opium-growing. This meant that just as opium production was rising in Afghanistan, external factors allowed the country to grab a bigger share of the world market.For the first few years after they took power in 1996, the Taliban had no compunction about encouraging the planting of opium. Like most food crops, however, opium can grow only on land that is properly irrigated or fed by rain. According to UN officials, the current food shortage partly reflects a conscious decision by the regime to promote the cultivation of opium rather than wheat.The New Silk Road How does Afghan heroin reach western markets? Broadly speaking, there are two routes: one passing through Central Asia and Russia, the other through the Balkans.Well before it reaches Western Europe—in Afghanistan itself, or else in Pakistan, Turkey or former Soviet states—the opium is converted into morphine and then into heroin. The “precursor” chemicals required for this process, such as acetic anhydride, are often diverted illegally from factories in Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan. In the ramshackle new states which until recently formed the soft underbelly of the Soviet Union, drug lords can rely both on lax laws and on the corruptibility of police and customs officers, whose wages are a pittance compared with the sums at stake in the narcotics business.From these states, the lethal consignments—hidden in truckloads of raisins or walnuts, disguised as bags of flour, or else transported in rusting Soviet-era railway cars—take two different routes. The northern route follows the old Silk Road into Russia, the Baltic States, Poland, Ukraine and the Czech Republic. From there, it runs through Scandinavia, Germany and points farther west. The UNODCCP'S director, Pino Arlacchi, says that Russia's “new rich” are among the biggest potential growth markets for heroin-pushers.Several other ex-Soviet republics, including Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania, with good road and rail routes, have been described in American government reports as increasingly important conduits for heroin from Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the German authorities have been struggling to staunch the flow of drugs through Poland. In 1999, for example, 80% of all heroin stopped on Germany's borders was seized at the Polish frontier. Police are particularly concerned by the arrival on the international market of a strain of high-grade narcotic known as Heroin No. 4, or white heroin, which is estimated to be at least 80% pure. Recent seizures in Germany, Turkey, Finland and Poland have all proved to be white heroin trans-shipped via Central Asia from Pakistan and Afghanistan. The southern, or “Balkan”, route goes principally from Afghanistan to Turkmenistan, across the Caspian Sea, into the Caucasus, then into Turkey, from where the heroin is shipped to Albania and Italy. Other consignments cross Bulgaria and Macedonia in container lorries, finding their way to Serbia, Hungary and Austria. A second route goes through Albania, then across the Adriatic in speed-boats on nocturnal dashes to beaches on the eastern coast of Puglia, and then by motorway into Austria. A third route involves container vessels sailing from Constantza, on the Black Sea, to Turkey and on to Italy.The one country that all drug traffickers try to avoid is Iran. Some 204 tonnes of opium and 29 tonnes of heroin and morphine were seized in Iran in 1999 by a combination of army battalions and police units deployed on the country's eastern and northern borders, accounting for 85% and 50% respectively of all seizures of opium and opium derivatives (heroin and morphine) in the world. (In Turkey, by contrast, only one-third of a tonne of opium was confiscated in the same year.) Hundreds of Iranian soldiers and policemen have been killed in gun battles with traffickers. Crime syndicates from Eastern Europe and the Balkans play a vital role.As new routes are established to link the mountains north of Kandahar with the streets of Dublin and Barcelona, a vital role is being played by crime syndicates from Eastern Europe—Ukraine in particular—and the Balkans. Throughout Western Europe, police report that whole sectors of criminal activity are being taken over by ethnic-Albanian syndicates trading on their success as drug-smugglers.These fraternities, whose origins may be in Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia or in the long-established Albanian communities of southern Italy, have no compunction about doing business with Serbian gangsters. They share with them the proceeds from drug- and gun-running, as well as the traffic in prostitutes from Ukraine, Romania and Moldova. According to police, ethnic-Albanian drug-running families are almost impossible to infiltrate because of the closeness of the family and clan structure and the difficulty of the language. In Prague, Albanians are fighting turf wars to oust Ukrainians controlling the heroin trade, while in London Jamaican pimps—not known for their respect for women's rights—complain of Albanian violence towards the East European prostitutes they control. When police in Oslo made Norway's largest-ever heroin seizure, they discovered that former fighters from the Kosovo Liberation Army controlled the drug-distribution chain. Heroin-dealing in Switzerland is dominated by Albanians. This year, much of the money made went to buy arms for the rebels fighting in Macedonia and a strip of southern Serbia.At the faceless, glass-fronted building in Vienna where UN officials try to keep tabs on this deadly traffic, more information seems to be available about prices in the dusty street markets of the Indian sub-continent than about dealings closer to home. But it is not hard to gather inklings, at least, of the web of connections which now links the bombed-out war zones of Afghanistan with ostensibly calm and prosperous places in Western Europe.Less than an hour's drive from Vienna is the town of Graz, which serves as a sort of nodal point for connections to the Balkans. This year's October festival was a jolly, bucolic spectacle. But it was not difficult to spot, among the brass bands and folk-dancing, the furtive figures of heroin dealers from northern Albania, plying their trade with white-faced addicts.Even these sad little transactions have consequences for places hundreds of miles away, says a senior UN police officer who helped to seize two truckloads of weapons—destined for the ethnic-Albanian rebels in Macedonia—at the border between Montenegro and Kosovo this year. He estimates that the anti-aircraft missiles, grenades and anti-tank rockets he captured were part of an arms deal worth around $4m. At least some of that was raised by selling, say, 20 kilos of heroin on the streets of Austria or Switzerland.UN officials hold out some hope that the heroin market will tighten again once the Afghan stockpile disappears, especially if planting does not resume. The United States and its allies will try to persuade any post-Taliban regime to keep the ban in place. But in a wrecked country, in desperate need of funds, the addiction to opium money will be hard to break.Note: The Taliban have another weapon: control of most of the world's heroin.Graz, Kabul and TehranSource: Economist, The (UK) Published: October 18, 2001Copyright: 2001 The Economist Newspaper Limited Contact: letters economist.com Website: http://www.economist.com/ Related Articles:What About bin Laden's Drug Empire?http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11108.shtmlU.S. Expected to Target Afghanistan's Opiumhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11103.shtmlWar of The Poppies http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11089.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #8 posted by bruce42 on October 19, 2001 at 13:02:23 PT Q: Why ban all the poppies? A: Because it takes a very experienced grower or trained botanist to differentiate between species of poppies. So the DEA's fix is to just ban all the poppies cause their trained weed pullin' monkies can't tell the difference tween opium poppies or just poppies grown purely for decor. As with hemp and MJ, the fix becomes a too broad elimination of plants, "good" or "bad". You'd think they woud encourage home grown poppies. After all, what better way to undermine Osama Bin Laden Drug Dealer than to grow the opiates on our own soil than to import it. Once again, the DEA forsakes simple economic principles in order to maintain a tough on drugs image. I'd start stocking up on coffee and chocolate kids, cause I can see the prices skyrocketing when the DEA decides that caffeine is addictive and dangerous and it takes business away from their tobacco and alcohol buddies. [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by Sudaca on October 19, 2001 at 11:53:41 PT typical The money won't benefit the Afghan farmers and Talibans as much as it will the middlemen and final distributors. Whoa re they? what are they selling to the Afghan in exchange , or do we think it "may" be something other than weapons? I mean come on.. who sells weapons in the world? And whose getting geared up to fight in that arena? May there be "other" players such as the Northern Alliance, would they need weapons to become the allies that are needed to take care of the Taliban? Would the US bankroll that or would the US rather the NA bankroll the operatioin themselves? Who ends up with the stockpiled opium? Who's got the connections down to move those stockpiles?geez. It must be Bin Laden since he can run around all over the place.. [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by kaptinemo on October 19, 2001 at 09:25:29 PT: Now, this is how silly it's getting... Did you know that the very same poppy seeds you get from the grocery store come from the very same plant that the DEA is engaging in a war of nerves with American seed companies to keep from selling?Take a look at the following: DEA victory against Thompson & Morgan Co. http://www2.aros.net/~lambo/order/dea01.htmDEA Leading Americas Drug War Down The Garden Path http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7644.shtml So typically stupid. [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by Cannabis Dave on October 19, 2001 at 07:56:51 PT Opium poppies grow all over America. I see opium poppies growing all over town (Portland) every Spring, and by the Summer Solstice they are "ripe" and full of alkaloids. I've seen whole FRONT yards full of nothing but opium poppies. Technically it's illegal to possess any part of the opium poppy plant, yet they are allowed for "ornamental" reasons. Don't try that with cannabis! I walk around town every June/July enjoying all the beautiful poppy flowers (so many different kinds!), and at least once a year I eat some opium - it's become a ritual for me. You can eat the entire pod when they are ripe, but before they dry - they don't taste bad at all. After they dry you can still get opium out of them, but they are rather chewy for eating. It has always perplexed me that our government allows opium poppies to grow in the midst of their war on drugs - it seems so hypocritical. Most people don't realise those pretty poppies that grow every year are full of opium, and they can easily be utilized for medicine. It has always astounded me that poppies are allowed while cannabis is completely banned. I guess that cannabis isn't considered as "ornamental", although in my view it's just as beautiful. [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by goneposthole on October 19, 2001 at 06:11:15 PT opiates I like poppies as flowers, too. Opiates are pain killers. The Taliban are people killers and make no bones about it. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by kaptinemo on October 19, 2001 at 04:55:36 PT: Diamonds in the manure pile This article makes some very telling points...nearly all of which seem to be lost upon it's intended audience."As the old subsistence economy gave way to a monetised one, opium emerged as one of the few commodities that could quickly be converted into American dollars—which could, in turn, be used to buy arms. (Emphsis mine -k.) Afghanistan's plunge into war also coincided with a drop in production in three other important opium-growing countries. Turkey, Iran and Pakistan all started enforcing strict drug-control laws and bans on opium-growing. This meant that just as opium production was rising in Afghanistan, external factors allowed the country to grab a bigger share of the world market.Squeeze the balloon, and it bulges in the opposite direction. Squeeze here, bulge there. Squeeze there, bulge in another place. Simple, so simple...yet this eludes policy makers whose salaries are dependent upon taxpayer's dollars extorted from us under penalty of prison if we don't 'render unto Caesar'. In short, we aren't getting our money's worth from these high-priced cretins.Or, are they really that stupid? I invite the curious to look here:Time Changes Tune On KLA's Heroin Money http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n753.a01.htmlFrom the article:"The London Times ( 3/24/99 ) reported that Europol and European national police forces are investigating "growing evidence that drug money is funding the KLA's leap from obscurity to power," citing a German intelligence report that indicated as much as half of the funding for the KLA's guerrilla war comes from profits from the heroin trade. Even the U.S. government has been concerned about possible KLA drug ties for at least four years. The Chronicle cites a 1995 advisor by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration that "warned of the possibility 'that certain members of the ethnic Albanian community in the Servian region of Kosovo have turned to drug trafficking in order to finance their separatist activities.'" The Washington Post ( 3/23/99 ) quoted the DEA's Rome office: "Turkish [drug] trafficking groups are using Albanians Yugoslavs and elements of criminal groups from Kosovo to sell and distribute their heroin. These groups are believed to be a part of the [KLA's] war against Servia. These Kosovars are financing their war through drug-trafficking activities, weapons trafficking and the trafficking of other illegal goods."This was written in 1999. The links established by the producing nations have been in existence for as long as the Taliban have...and have been used by them.And, as The Economist points out:"Even these sad little transactions have consequences for places hundreds of miles away, says a senior UN police officer who helped to seize two truckloads of weapons—destined for the ethnic-Albanian rebels in Macedonia—at the border between Montenegro and Kosovo this year. He estimates that the anti-aircraft missiles, grenades and anti-tank rockets he captured were part of an arms deal worth around $4m. At least some of that was raised by selling, say, 20 kilos of heroin on the streets of Austria or Switzerland.This, better than anything else, demonstrates the absolute crying futility of trying the stamp out the drug trade on the supply side without dealing effectively with the original problem: addiction. And that by maintaining the traffic in it's present illegal status, more than an addicts' continued misery is being compounded; someone, a father, a mother, sister, brother, husband, wife, old folks, little kids, someone will wind up on the business end of those weapons. And with the amounts at stake, and the enormous profits, the least of our worries are late model AKs, Stinger missiles and RPGs in the hands of nut-cases; these people have even greater ambitions. Nuclear ones.Again, so very, childishly simple; why can't our pols seem to get it? [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by lookinside on October 18, 2001 at 22:30:15 PT: opiates... have their place...as a pain killer, they are without peer...and remember...poppies are pretty and when that migraine hits, a ball of dried poppy sap can help alot...just be aware that it can be physically addictive, like xanax or vicodin or seconal or ritalin etc...the point is, in a sane world, i would have a poppy patch in my herb garden, maybe as a border around my cannabis patch... [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by goneposthole on October 18, 2001 at 21:02:22 PT "informing the public about cannabis" I really do not care if the Taliban have honed poppy cultivation and process it to heroin. They can distribute the stuff with ease throughout Europe. Good for them. I can do without them and their heroin. I am going to keep my nose to the grindstone.All they really do is get you hooked and then proceed to take everything that you have. It doesn't really matter what it is that you have. Anything that you have they will surely take. Believe it!Drop some hemp seeds on the ground. They will give something back. Believe it! [ Post Comment ] Post Comment