Pubdate: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 Source: Philadelphia Daily News (PA) Copyright: 2002 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. Contact: http://www.phillynews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/339 Author: Mark Angeles Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin) WAR BRINGING OPIUM TO THE MASSES Supply Coming From Afghanistan AMERICA MIGHT have chased Osama bin Laden out of the mountains of Afghanistan with three months of bombing raids, but the hills are alive with still another scourge - opium. Allied forces in Afghanistan have dismantled the Taliban, but at the same time effectively eliminated any oversight on illegal drug activity in that country. Federal drug experts say they're certain that the recent fall of the fundamentalist Islamic government is directly tied to a glut of inexpensive opium spewing from the country. Those experts say it's just a matter of time before the United States, and particularly large cities such as Philadelphia, see a "tidal wave" of cheap dope, adding millions in law enforcement and treatment to a terrorist war already costing this country $2 billion a month. Drug Enforcement Administration officials in Philadelphia say they have no evidence yet that illegal opium or its derivative, heroin, on the streets here came as a direct result of the Taliban ouster. But one occasional drug user in Philadelphia claims he's sampled some of the highly pure stuff for which Afghanistan is famous. "It's dark red, the color of dried blood, and it has a sweet smell," said a Center City man, who requested anonymity. "It's ironic - we send them bombs, and they send us opium." Before the Taliban clamp-down a year ago, Afghanistan had supplied 75 percent of the world's opium. Most is processed into morphine and heroin before it leaves that part of the world. Many Afghans, however, were stockpiling the opiate in hopes of driving up the price, officials said. Then came Sept. 11. "After Sept. 11, they started dumping opium on the open market, and prices dropped to rock-bottom," said Will Glaspy, spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Agency in Washington, D.C. A kilogram of opium that previously sold for about $700 now could be had for $30, officials said. "They were trying to get rid of the stuff before [an American] bomb got dropped on it," Glaspy said. The bargain-basement sale of the opium only increased as the war ensued, experts said. "With the Taliban gone, there was no controlling authority in Afghanistan, and the U.S. forces sent there frankly had more urgent things to tend to, like chase down Osama bin Laden," said Tim Riley, director of communications for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. "As soon as I heard the Taliban had fallen, I thought about the likelihood that [allied authorities] were going to be winking at all the drug trafficking," said Dr. Robert Forman, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and director of technology transfer at Penn's Treatment Research Institute. Officials were quick to point out that most of the opium from Afghanistan ends up in Europe and Russia. Most of the heroin, from the same family as opium, in the United States originates in Colombia. But some said the increasing desire to sell the drug will eventually lead to the United States, easily the biggest consumer of illegal drugs in the world, according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. "It's entirely plausible to think that new supply routes to the United States will be established," Riley said. "We haven't been part of the Afghan poppy pipeline, but that might change." Currently, Afghanistan's huge opium crop is imported, along with the crops from Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey, to Southeast Asia, according to the DEA. The portion that crosses the Pacific to North America is distributed in the Northeast - particularly Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore and Washington - certain West Coast cities, and some Midwestern cities, including Chicago and Detroit. Experts say Philadelphia is home to the purest heroin coming in to this country. And there's even more bad news, federal drug officials said. It's only going to get worse. With Afghanistan in chaos, new crops of the drug are being planted in record numbers. "They're planting poppy plants like crazy," said Riley. "By the springtime [when opium is usually harvested], there's going to be a virtual tidal wave of this stuff." And if just a fraction of that reaches Philadelphia, it would further cripple an already overburdened system of treatment for heroin and opiate addicts here, experts said. "My biggest concern is the lack of availability of treatment," said Dr. George Woody, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and a 30-year veteran of drug addiction treatment. "All of the places that treat this kind of addiction have waiting lists, and this would only aggravate the problem." Federal officials don't seem to have a clear plan to deal with the problem both here and abroad. In published reports, some are advocating a one-time buy back of the spring crop for impoverished Afghan poppy farmers. But others want to rely mostly on law enforcement. The war in Afghanistan is already costing the United States between $1 billion and $2 billion per month, according to estimates from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a nonprofit think tank in Washington. In addition, about $3 billion is spent on drug treatment annually in the U.S., part of the $35 billion to $45 billion drug policy budget according to federal figures. And about $300 billion is spent spent on arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating addicts. * - --- MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager