A Need for Cohesive Counter-Narcotics Policy
[11] Id. at 31 (“Alteration to poppy types may yet have a powerful impact in an opium poppy industry as evidenced by the top1 variety of poppy (also known as .Norman.) successfully developed in Australia to produce a poppy rich in thebaine . and low in morphine . now extensively cultivated in Tasmania.”)
[12] See FN 10 Above
[13] This can be inferred from the poppy plant’s cultivation in Afghanistan, France, Spain, India, Turkey, China, Australia, Hungary, Egypt, Mexico, Columbia, just to name a few.
[14] Id. at 32 (“… agricultural and topological factors in many areas (including susceptibility to drought,for example) diminish the possibilities for the cultivation of wheat or other crops.”)
[15] U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2010 Afghan Opium Survey, 16 (United Nations Publications 2010) “… [h]arvesting technique used in Afghanistan consists of lancing the fully developed but still green opium capsules. Liquid plant juice (opium latex) oozes out of the cuts, dries on the capsules to turn into opium gum, and is scratchd off the other day.”)
[16] The Senlis Council, FEASIBILITY STUDY ON OPIUM LICENSING IN AFGHANISTAN FOR THE PRODUCTION OF MORPHINE AND OTHER ESSENTIAL MEDICINES 249 (2005) (“opium gum has a very long shelf life and can gain value over time.”)
[17] U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2010 World Drug Report, 12 FN 3 (United Nations Publications 2010) (“Morphine represents an intermediate step in the processing of opium to heroin, and is rarely consumed as a drug in its own right.”)
[18] The Senlis Council, FEASIBILITY STUDY ON OPIUM LICENSING IN AFGHANISTAN FOR THE PRODUCTION OF MORPHINE AND OTHER ESSENTIAL MEDICINES 250 (2005) (“The process of making heroin out of morphine involves boiling morphine and a common chemical, acetic anhydride, for some hours, along with sodium carbonate, activated charcoal, chloroform, ethyl alcohol, ether, and acetone.”)
[19] U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], Strategic Programme Framework for Afghanistan 2006-2010 38 (United Nations 2006) (“Recent surveys and analysis estimate that more than 70% of the Afghan opium production is converted into heroin within Afghanistan. At current production levels, this requires the availability of an estimated 1,000 tons of acetic anhydride (AA) and about 9,000 of other chemicals and precursors in the country every year. Afghanistan has neither local production nor local licit use for AA, and a detailed assessment on the other chemicals used for clandestine heroin production has been started to ascertain their types, local availability/use and sources.”)
[20] U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2010 World Drug Report, 20 (United Nations Publications 2010) (“ … heroin remains the most problematic opiate internationally.”); See Also, Id. at 37 (“More users die each year from problems related to heroin use, and more are forced to seek treatment for addiction, than for any other illicit drug.”)
[21] Id. at 30 (“Their use can lead to severe dependence and is often associated with IDU-related HIV/AIDS and hepatitis B and C, as well as high mortality rates.”)
[22] Id. at 30 (“The mortality rate for dependent heroin users is between 6 and 20 times that expected for those in the general population of the same age and gender, as the difference between a ‘recreational dose’ and a ‘fatal’ one is small, and variations in street drug purity can result in overdoses. Thus, in most countries, opiates consumption constitutes the main cause of drug-related deaths.”)
[23] STRATFOR Global Intelligence, Afghanistan: Global Trade for Illicit Opiates 3 (March 29, 2010)
[24] The Chinese Opium Trade involved the trade of opium only. And not the trade of morphine and/or heroin.
[25] U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2010 World Drug Report, 46 (United Nations Publications 2010)
[26] U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2008 World Drug Report, 173 (United Nations Publications 2008)
[27] Id. at 177 (“Production was reported from 20 Chinese provinces. More than 40% of the total production took place in the province of Szechwan, followed by Yunnan. Yunnan province is located in southern China, bordering Myanmar, and Szechwan province is located north of Yunnan. In other words, more than half of China’s opium production took place slightly to the north of the geographical area which would later be known as Golden Triangle (Myanmar, Laos and Thailand), one of the main sources of illicit opium in the 20th century.”)
[28] Id. at 201 (citing FN 175-176) (This would continue until 1974, at which point Turkey would allow the licensed cultivation of poppy using the poppy straw method.); Id. at 203 (citing FN 186) (And “[i]nitial progress made in curbing the global heroin problem [would stall] as the void created by the strengthening of controls in Turkey … [would] soon [be] filled by rising opium production in … the Golden Triangle.”)
[29] Id. at 200 (Myanmar alone would be the largest illicit opiate supplier.); See Also, Drug Policy Alliance, South East Asia: The Golden Triangle, (2011) http://www.drugpolicy.org/global/drugpolicyby/asia/seasia/ ; See Also, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, Pierre-Arunaud Chouvy, Afghanistan’s Opium Production in Perspective (2006).
[30] U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2008 World Drug Report, 203United Nations Publications 2008) (“After 1979, there was a slow shift of opium production to neighboring Pakistan and eventually to Afghanistan.”)
[31] See, U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2008 World Drug Report (United Nations Publications 2008); See Also, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, Pierre-Arunaud Chouvy, Afghanistan’s Opium Production in Perspective (2006).
[32] See, The Senlis Council, Impact Assessment of Crop Eradication in Afghanistan and Lessons Learned from Latin America and South East Asia, 85-110 (MF Publishing Ltd January 2006)
[33] Id.
[34] Golden Crescent: Afghanistan and Pakistan.
[35] U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2007 World Drug Report 216 (United Nations Publications 2007)
[36] U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2010 World Drug Report 42 (United Nations Publications 2010) “Expressed as a proportion of the global illicit opium production, Afghanistan’s share rose from around 20% in 1980 to 70% in 2000, and to more than 90% since 2006. This is directly related to decreased output in the ‘Golden Triangle’, encompassing Thailand, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Myanmar, the world’s leading opium producer in the 1970s and 1980s. Between 2003 and 2008, opium production in Myanmar fell by 59%, from 810 to 410 mt. Production in the neighboring Lao People’s Democratic Republic also declined dramatically, from more than 120 mt in the 1990s to around to 10 mt in recent years. Thailand’s production is negligible; it has not reported any significant cultivation since 2003.”); See Also, Id. at 41 (“Afghan opium is now the only known source of heroin consumed in Europe and the Russian Federation,” the two largest heroin markets within the illicit opiate market.”)
[37] Id. at 138
[38] Id.
[39] Id. at 12
[40] See, U.N. Economic and Social Council, Report on the fifty-second session, E/2009/28 E/CN.7/2009/12, Mar. 14, 2008 & Mar. 11-20, 2009 Political Declaration and Plan of Action on International Cooperation towards an Integrated and Balanced Strategy to Counter the World Drug Problem (2009)
[41] U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2010 World Drug Report 32 (United Nations Publications 2010) (“Increases in Afghanistan more than offset remarkable declines in South-East Asia during that period. There were encouraging declines in the last three years, but Afghan production was still more than 150% higher in 2009 than in 1998. With strong increases after 2005, production seems to have well exceeded world demand and led to the creation of large stockpiles, but it is clear that the global opiate market has not been eliminated, or significantly reduced, since 1998.”)
