Taliban Move to Ban Opium Production in Afghanistan

Someone clearly did a great job protecting the crops and keeping the trade routes open.

Afghanistan-opium-poppy-cultivation-1994-2007b.png


It will be interesting to see what will happen if cultivation returns to the 2001 level.

Afghanistan_opium_poppy_cultivation
 
i've only ever seen the tan powder on the east coast and black tar on the west coast

where does the powder come from?
 
dasein said:
Someone clearly did a great job protecting the crops and keeping the trade routes open.
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Funny that you mention this. My exact thoughts after starting this thread with the headline on the date of release, then discovering that up until 2020 85% of the entire world's opium was of Afghan origin, and then realizing but hang on a minute: the troops have only just left (like not even a month before this press release and my starting this thread).

One of the reasons I've not really bothered about this thread in spite of having started it when this news broke:

If anything this is a smokescreen and storm in a teacup is my prediction. I've gone down the Ephedra/Meth. rabbit hole since starting this thread and for the purposes of this thread and most of the so-called experts seem to be in agreement i.e. that the eradication of Ephedra Sinica is all but impossible, it's too prolific, hardy, and Meth. is cheaper and easier to produce. My logic says that opium is being used as a short-term bargaining chip here in order to curb favor with the UN and its member states and once such has been achieved it'll be situation normal. Hell for all I know this is a "pump and dump" strategy (stock market manipulation strategy common with penny stocks) i.e. a means to artificially inflate the opium price.

If I'm wrong on the above: well then so be it. But it's a hell of a gamble given that the opium poppy will grow just about anywhere and in pretty harsh conditions. Somewhere and sometime an-other country will step in and take up the slack. In the case of an African country: it'll just have to be a trade-off between what can be made out of this business vs. the amount of aid being received is all. And quite frankly: it'd solve many a poor country's socioeconomic woes if done right. And not to mention that if done right: could impact on the disastrous effects caused by synthetic opioids e.g. Fentanyl (odd coming from me that last part but if these forums are anything to go buy quality heroin would be favored over Fentanyl any time of the day or night).
 
Mr. Krinkle said:
i've only ever seen the tan powder on the east coast and black tar on the west coast

where does the powder come from?
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According to the DEA most east coast powder (that is heroin) originates in Mexico. I believe Mexico has a monopoly on black tar. A lot of the powder on the east coast no longer contains heroin, or if it does, it’s almost always mixed with fentanyl. Mexican cartels buy precursor chemicals from China to produce the fentanyl that ends up on the east coast.

According to some sources at least a small amount of heroin in the Northwest was produced in Southeast Asia. Still the vast majority of the entire USA supply comes from Mexico.


**after reading the latest DEA assessment I removed Columbia and South America entirely. However, Columbia does produce some heroin that reaches the east coast but 90% or more is cultivated in Mexico.

Heroin of Mexican origin accounted for 92 percent of the total weight of heroin analyzed under the HSP, the seventh consecutive year that Mexico has been identified as the primary source of origin for heroin encountered in the United States. According to U.S. Government estimates, poppy cultivation in Mexico in 2019 was recorded at 30,400 hectares, a 27 percent decrease from the 41,800 hectares reported in 2018. Similarly, potential pure heroin production decreased by 27 percent from 106 metric tons in 2018 to 78 metric tons in 2019 (See Figure 8). Low opium prices paid to poppy farmers in Mexico, coupled with an increase in fentanyl use in the United States, likely impacted the decrease in cultivation.
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Full PDF can be downloaded here: DEA 2020 National Drug Assessment

(Updated)
 
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