Afghanistan’s Opium: UN’s World Drug Report 2007
New notes and data toward conclusions: but not conclusions. Read on and form your own.
Over the weekend, I perused the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) World Drug Report 2007 that came out last month. I’m going to start in Afghanistan and then follow various trade routes. Since the opium market is a global market, this will eventually take us out of Central Asia and into the world at large.
The map above is for 2006. Here is the UNODC-2007 Map in pdf. (p. 61).
Afghanistan:
Doing the stats:
Price.
1. Farm-gate prices declined to USD 125 per kilo in December 2006 from USD 150 per kilo the previous year. (p. 39). This could be due to increased supply but also to a coordination of buyers into a cartel structure. In general, however, I would assume that a buyer’s cartel would have driven the price far lower. Existence of such a cartel would indicate exponential trouble for counter-narcotics operations.
Processing.
2. Out of 8 countries who reported the destruction of a total of 844 drug labs, Afghanistan destroyed 22% of them, or 186. This seems to indicate that Afghanistan’s drug trade is sufficiently organized to have invested in “value-added” refinement on top of the agricultural trade. (p. 39).
3. Afghanistan also reports increased seizure of the chemicals required to transform opium into morphine.
Eradication.
4. Opium eradication occurred on 15, 300 hectares of Afghanistani fields. (Table 2).
5. This left 165,000 hectares still in cultivation. Doing the math: 15.3k/ 15.3 +165k = 0.0848, Which means that 8.5% of opium by area was eradicated. (p. 40).
Eurasian Traffic Patterns:
Route No. 1: Neighbors.
Iran: 53% of all Afghanistani opium traffics through Iran. Iran also leads the world in opium seizures: 29% in 2005. In part the nature of this large number of seizures are due to Iran’s large opiate consumption. (p. 47).
Pakistan: 33% of all Afghanistan’s opium traffics through Pakistan. 20% of all opiate seizures were made in Pakistan in 2005.
Route No. 2: South and outward.
Since Afghanistan is a land-locked country, much of the traffic passes through Iran and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. One can see this, and also the role of maritime piracy/illegal sea trade by looking at the map of rising opiate abuse on page 61 of the report. Afghanistan’s own use of opiates has risen markedly. If one takes a ruler and angles it from Afghanistan to South Africa, the countries inbetween show either ‘marked rise’ of opiate use, or, some increase’ in opiate use. Though Europe still has a higher opiate usage rate, this looks like far more than a foothold.
Route No. 3: West and then up.
Through Iran to Turkey and Bulgaria, and thence to Europe. Increased interdiction efforts have shifted some of this traffic to travel through the Balkans, or the Ukraine, and thence to Europe. (p. 45). Turkey seized 25% more this year than last, which suggests that this route remains of great importance. (p. 47).
Route No. 4: North and then West.
Through Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and into Russia, other CIS states, the Baltics and Nordic states. (p. 45). It is believed that traffic through Central Asia increased by 12% in 2006. In 2005, Tajikistan accounted for 60% of all opiate captures in Central Asia. But last year, their seizure rate declined 51%. (p. 46). Since Tajikistan renewed its border patrol arrangements with Russia earlier this year, things could improve.
Thanks to the UNODC and reporting states:
This is a nice piece of work, marred only by the failure of some countries to report (and for some countries, perhaps a little hedging on the information). All of the states that reported deserve our appreciation and our admiration–and those that reported the worst news deserve our best regards for their honesty. Since reporting sometimes has adverse effects on tourism and other kinds of direct investment, it is a sign of real political will to own up to the problems.
It is also a step toward resolving the economic, security and public health problems inherent in opiate traffic.