I hope everyone knows by now... USA IS THE BIGGEST DRUG SMUGGLING COUNTRY THAT MONOPOLIZES THIS MOST PROFITABLE BUSINESS BY OUTGUNNING THE WORLD - ITS BUDDY UK NATO WORK SIDE BY SIDE WITH USA - WAKE THE HELL UP, YOU THINK DRUG DEALERS CARE ABOUT BANKRUPTING YOUR FAMILIES? NOW WHAT THE HELL DID THEY DO WITH THE DRUGS? TO PAY OFF DEBT??
US soldier guarding the precious US drug crop (There are only 3 real currencies - G-O-D - Gold, Oil and DRUGS)
******************************************************** Map of the week: The mystery of the missing opium ********************************************************
It's a mystery that has got British law enforcement officials and others across the planet scratching their heads. Put bluntly, enough heroin to supply the world's demand for years has simply disappeared
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) describes the situation as "a time bomb for public health and global security"
This week's Map of the Week comes courtesy of the UNODC. It shows their latest estimate of opium production in Afghanistan - another bumper year
A crop of 7,700 tonnes will produce around 1,100 tonnes of heroin - it basically works on a 7:1 ratio.The mystery is that the global demand for heroin is less than half that. In other words, Afghanistan only needs to produce 3,500 tonnes to satisfy every known heroin user on the planet
Look at the graph, though
For the past three years, production has been running at almost twice the level of global demand. The numbers just don't add up
There are two credible theories
Theory 1: A large and undocumented market has opened up in countries which don't want to admit the problem. Russia has long been in denial over the scale of its heroin problem and the same may be true in emerging drug markets like Iran, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan
The Iranians are certainly increasingly anxious about the opium fields on their doorstep. Border guards and police have been involved in deadly shoot-outs with smugglers with experts suggesting that there are now a million heroin users in Iran
But the over-supply is so great that it is hard to conceive of it all disappearing in to the blood-streams of new addicts in Tehran and Ashgabat
Theory 2: Vast quantities of heroin and morphine are being stockpiled. Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UNODC is convinced that is the only explanation. In a recent bulletin he issues an urgent order: 'Find the missing opium.' "As a priority, intelligence services need to examine who holds this surplus, where it may go, and for what purpose" he says. "We know little about these stockpiles of drugs, besides that they are not in the hands of farmers"
Further credibility is given to the stockpiling theory in that 'farm-gate' prices for opium remain pretty stable at about $70 per kilo
So where are the thousands of tonnes of drugs that the UNODC describe as a "time bomb"?
American Gangster - Stuffing Burma 'Golden Triangle' heroin in dead US soldiers bodies and transport back to US during Vietnam war - think there is any difference now we are in another 'Vietnam' in Afghanistan, looking for BIN LADEN for the last 7 years?
************************************************************** Mystery buyer of Afghan poppy resin thrives on drug trade **************************************************************
Everyone in this part of Helmand is waiting for the arrival of “The Businessman” – a mysterious individual who turns up at about this time each year to buy poppy resin from the acres of crops in the green belt along the Helmand river
No one knows what nationality he is – Afghan, Pakistani or Iranian – but during the winter he turns up with cash to pay the farmers to keep them in food and supplies, on the understanding that he gets the lion’s share of the poppy resin the following April or May Even the locals refer to him as The Businessman, never putting a name to the one who guarantees them an income, although the farmers receive a meagre wage for a product that generates millions of dollars further up the drugs chain as heroin in the rest of the world
The Taleban demand one kilo of the poppy resin for every ten produced, telling the farmers it is a tax that they have to pay. But The Businessman scoops up the rest, and neither the farmers nor the Taleban interfere. As one British Army officer said: “This is real Mafia territory; it’s like The Sopranos but without the humour.” For the British troops at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Inkerman, a Rorke’s Drift of a place between Sangin to the south and Kajaki to the north, there is nothing they can do to stop the trade. That is the job of the Afghan police’s counter-narcotics teams But in this swelteringly hot, dusty location – desert on one side, poppy-growing fields on the other – there is no sign of anyone trying to prevent the poppy harvest, let alone seeking to uncover the identity of the man who stands to profit the most
From the ramparts of FOB Inkerman, crafted by Royal Engineers out of a deserted compound, the soldiers of B Company 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment keep a wary eye on all the activity. Among the farmers and their families scraping off the resin as it oozes from slits made with razor blades in the poppy heads, there are probably lower-tier Taleban helping out, ensuring they get their money’s worth when the harvesting finishes in less than three weeks They spend the cash on more arms and ammunition to fight the British
It already looks like a bumper harvest. Wherever you look in Helmand, where the bulk of Afghanistan’s poppies are grown, there are fields and fields of poppies Last year, as part of the Government’s eradication programme, about 3,000 acres (1,215 hectares) of poppy crops in Helmand were destroyed – out of nearly 100,000 acres in the province
British officials acknowledge that it will take at least 20 years to rid Afghanistan of its opium economy In the meantime, with the Government and international community pecking around the edges of the poppy business, the farmers carry on with their normal lives, catering for their families but also for the Taleban, the drug barons and their intermediaries
Poppy farmers here say that it takes 20 days to harvest the crop and they are already three days into the time-table The resin is put into saddlebags and containers, and when the scraping is completed the first of the “jingly trucks” will arrive to pick up the opium and take it on to Garmab, up the road north towards Kajaki
Once the poppy harvest is over, the troops at FOB Inkerman are sure that the Taleban will go back to attacking them from across the fields, hiding in the deep irrigation ditches and wheat crops that grow to chin height. The Taleban are concentrated here mainly in an area known as Jusaly, consisting of about 15 villages to the west of FOB Inkerman The soldiers can see Jusaly from the ramparts
No one is expecting any full-scale assaults – the base is too well defended, as the Taleban know. But they have a range of weapons that pose a threat through indirect fire, including the RPG7 rocket-propelled grenade, a recoiless rifle called SPG9, 107mm Chinese rockets and the fearsome Russian DshK, a 12. 7mm antiaircraft gun.
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