ReconsiDer Tidbits

Pubdate: Wed, 10 Oct 2001
Source: BBC News (UK Web)
Copyright: 2001 BBC
Contact: http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking_point/
Website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/558
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

WAR VIEWS: AFGHAN HEROIN TRADE WILL LIVE ON

Richard Davenport-Hines, an expert in the history of narcotics, says that
whatever happens in the war on terror, the drugs trade will find a way to
live on.

'The arms the Taleban are buying today are paid for with the lives of young
British people buying their drugs on British streets,' Tony Blair claimed
on 2 October.

'That is another part of their regime that we should seek to destroy.' What
are the facts behind this declaration?

According to US State Department figures, Afghanistan's crop of 3,656
metric tons accounted for 72% of the world's illicit opium in 2000.

Opium poppies cultivated for the medical use of heroin are however legally
grown in other parts of the world. At least 90% of the illicit heroin in
Britain originated in Afghanistan.

Recent Home Office figures suggest that there are 295,000 illegal heroin
users in Britain consuming about 30 tons annually with a value of more than
UKP 2.3 billion. This represents approximately one-third of the UKP 6.6
billion spent annually on illegal drugs in the United Kingdom.

Trafficking

US government agencies have been crucial in escalating this supply of
heroin to the western world.

In 1947 the CIA's supply of arms and money to Corsican gangs recruited to
harass French trade unionists in Marseille docks was the beginning of the
'French Connection' which supplied heroin to North America until the early
1970s.

Heroin trafficking subsequently developed in areas of SE Asia suffering
from weak central governments, endemic warfare and private armies allied to
the CIA.

CIA support of anti-Communist Chinese Nationalists who had settled near
China's border with Burma [Myanmar] and of Hmong tribesmen in Laos helped
the development of the so-called 'Golden Triangle' which, after American
withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973, supplied about one-third of heroin
smuggled into the US.

Burma remains the world's second largest illicit source of heroin, with an
estimated 89,500 hectares of opium under cultivation in 1999.

Soviet Occupation

Crucially, in 1979, the Carter administration shipped arms to the
mujaheddin [Muslim holy warriors] resisting the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan. These American-backed rebels raised money for arms by selling
opium, and by 1980, 60% of heroin in the US originated in Afghanistan.

A UK Government spokesman has stated that Osama Bin Laden 'has been closely
involved in the Afghan drugs trade and has encouraged major traffickers in
the past to flood Europe and the US as a means of undermining and
destabilising'.

This may be overstated, for drug trafficking does not seem to be a major
source of money for his al-Qaeda network.

Indeed, when the Taleban temporarily banned the cultivation and trafficking
in opium during 2000, it was their opponents the Northern Alliance who
continued to grow and sell the poppy crop.

Hard Promise

Tony Blair's promise to destroy Afghan opium trafficking may prove hard to
keep. Despite the Bush administration's costly Operation Just Cause,
launched in 1989 against General Noriega's drug-racketeering regime in
Panama, that country remains a major centre of drug money laundering and an
important link in cocaine shipments.

The joint US/Colombian search-and-kill operation of 1993 against Pablo
Escobar, leader of the Medellin drug cartel in Colombia, merely improved
the business opportunities for his rivals.

Reports from both the US Drug Enforcement Agency and the United Nations
agree that Colombia's cocaine production capacity has soared since
Escobar's death.

Raised Stakes

Drugs are like most other businesses: the higher the risks, the higher the
potential rewards. If policing is increased, or criminal penalties are
raised, then the profits taken by successful trafficker will be hiked too.

Drugs enforcement often serves only as a business incentive, as there will
always be men desperate or bold enough to take on the increased risk.

Currently up to 15% of illicit heroin is intercepted. As traffickers have
gross profit margins of up to 300%, at least 75% of illicit shipments would
have to be intercepted before the traffickers' profits are hurt. It is
unlikely to happen.

Richard Davenport-Hines' book The Pursuit of Oblivion - A Global History of
Narcotics 1500-2000 will be published by Weidenfield and Nicolson next week.