Pubdate: Mon, 02 Jul 2001
Source: Times of Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan)
Copyright: 2001 The Times of Central Asia
Contact:  http://www.times.kg/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1202
Section: Central Asia

EUROPE IS THE "MAIN" CONSUMER OF CENTRAL ASIAN NARCOTICS

KABUL. Barbara Crossette, correspondent of the New York Times, says United 
Nations narcotics officials are looking at three regions that may be 
tempted. Central Asia, Myanmar, and Pakistan. But the director of the 
United Nations Drug control Programme, Pino Arlacchi issued Pakistan a 
positive certificate.

In Pakistan, Arlacchi said: The government, working with the United 
Nations, has completed one of its most successful eradication programmes 
over the last two decades. "Production is down to almost zero in the last 
few years", he said. Central Asia, he said, has the most potential for 
poppy production. The United Nations has been working there with limited 
funds to cut down trafficking in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and 
Tajikistan.

In the last four months, more than two tons of heroin have been seized on 
the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border. Barbara quotes him saying that there was 
no chance that opium from other sources would compensate this year for the 
loss of Afghan crops and the prices of opium and heroin will rise 
substantially, with opium already worth five to seven times its usual 
price. His programme helped convince the IEA that opium is a disgrace to 
Islam. Chairman of the Central Asia Institute of Johns Hopkins, Frederick 
Starr, told New York Times that the West, especially Europe, had been 
inexplicably slow in recognizing developments in Afghanistan.

"The reduction is probably the most dramatic event in the history of 
illegal drug markets, not only in scale, but also in the fact that it was 
done domestically, without international assistance", he said. He added 
that Europe, where most Afghan heroin was consumed, had been "stunningly 
dysfunctional" in helping Afghan farmers who have sacrificed livelihoods 
and in moving to prevent new fields from springing up in other poor 
countries. Arlacchi said he was sceptical about including Myanmar, formerly 
Burma, because Thailand and China have put tremendous pressure on the 
military junta there to control narcotics production. He said the ethnic 
groups in northern Myanmar who once were the largest poppy producers have 
instead turned to making chemical compounds.

American experts agree that the greater problem now is synthetic drugs like 
ecstasy, which are becoming increasingly popular among young Asians. "But 
even if in the long term its reductions supply is a major success, it will 
be sustainable only with a parallel reduction in the demand in the 
industrial countries," Arlacchi said. Narcotics experts say they do not see 
matching efforts in rich countries to cut use. "The prices of heroin and 
cocaine have been declining over 10 years", Arlacchi said.

"That trend will now be interrupted. Prices will increase without demand 
reduction and there will be more powerful incentives to cultivators and 
traders." Starr, of Johns Hopkins, said special attention should be paid to 
Kyrgyzstan, part of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, as well as Xinjiang, in 
western China. "Kyrgyzstan, was the largest legal producer of opium poppies 
in the world during Soviet times", he said. Opium was used to make morphine 
for medicinal use. "Presumably the people who made it work then are still 
on the ground and unemployed.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom