Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) Contact: http://www.smh.com.au/ Pubdate: Sat, 17 Oct 1998 Page: 33 Author: Greg Bearup HEROIN HAUL: A DROP IN THE OCEAN OR ENOUGH TO MAKE WAVES? Take 400kg of heroin out of the equation, and who knows the effect it will have on Australia's habit? It all depends on who's talking, writes GREG BEARUP. MICK PALMER, the straightforward and likable head of the Australian Federal Police, stood proud at a podium in Sydney on Wednesday morning to announce his troops' greatest triumph in their fight against the drug barons. "To respond to some of the criticisms that are made from time to time which say that the war against drugs has been lost, I think that is absolute nonsense," the AFP commissioner said. "Drugs are imported by real people, they communicate over real telephones and on the real Internet and they transport a commodity on real ships and real boats just like any other business anywhere else in the world. "If we can't be successful in dealing with that because the commodity happens to be drugs, then really there is no place for law enforcement at all, because it could just as easily be illegal immigration, germ warfare, small arms, nuclear arms ... and if it was any of those things then I wouldn't suggest for a moment that we couldn't be successful." But the real problem for Palmer and his troops is that Australia has become a dumping ground for the huge oversupply of China White - high-grade South-East Asian heroin. Ray Tinker, the Federal officer who co-ordinated this week's operation, said yesterday that intelligence from Interpol, the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the AFP revealed that there are now only two main markets being targeted by the Golden Triangle's heroin lords - Canada and Australia. Much of the heroin grown in Burma, Laos and Thailand used to end up in the world's largest market, the United States, but now the South American cocaine cartels have diversified into heroin and squeezed the Chinese brokers out. Europe is dominated by Afghanistan and Turkey. The DEA's report on illicit drugs said that by 1995, 62 per cent of heroin seized in the US came from South America (there had been virtually none at the start of this decade) and 17 per cent from the Golden Triangle. Last year, sources said, the seizure figures for South-East Asia had shrunk even further. However, according to the International Narcotics Control Board, production of heroin from the Golden Triangle has remained stable at about 240 tonnes a year. The effect on the Australian heroin market has been dramatic. The cost of wholesale heroin, delivered to brokers in Sydney, has fallen from a high of $250,000 a kilogram about five years ago to less than $100,000 a kilogram. Paul Dillon, from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Council, says the impact at street level has been even more drastic. An average cap of heroin on the streets of Cabramatta or Kings Cross dropped from $80 in 1996 to $50 in 1997. This year it fell again to $30. The dealers don't even bother to cut the heroin any more, and most times it is sold in as pure a form as it was when it left the hills of Burma. There has been no great increase in the number of heroin shipments arriving in Australia, but the size of shipments has risen dramatically. No-one knows how much heroin is consumed by our addicts and recreational users, but for many years law enforcement bodies have been happy to boast that they were capturing about 10 per cent. At an average of about 160 kilograms seized each year over the past five years, that would mean annual consumption is about 1.6 tonnes. On those figures, this week's haul of 400 kilograms means that a quarter of all the heroin consumption has been taken out, and State and Federal police officers believe it will have a great effect on the street-level market. "The fact is that 20 million less caps of heroin will hit the streets of Sydney," Tinker said. The NSW Police Commissioner, Peter Ryan, said vigilance would be required, especially if prices rose and addicts were forced to commit more crime to support the inflated cost of their habits. However, many criminologists say that the size of Australia's heroin market has been grossly underestimated "by several tonnes", and that even a seizure of such size will make little difference. The AFP commissioned a study to try to estimate heroin use in Australia. It has refused to make the document public, but the Herald understands it estimates that consumption is much greater than previously thought. Paul Dillon believes this week's seizure will do little to alter the market at street level. He is backed by the head of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics, Dr Don Weatherburn, who said the "likely effect will probably be zero, because I think it is only a small fraction of the total amount of heroin coming in". His organisation has conducted studies following other large seizures and found that there was no rise in prices or drop in quantity. - --- Checked-by: Don Beck