Opium Production in Afghanistan - Drug Trafficking and Impact Around The World

Drug Trafficking and Impact Around The World

According to EU agencies, Afghanistan has been Europe’s main heroin supplier for more than 10 years. Heroin enters Europe primarily by two major land routes: the long-standing ‘Balkan route’ through Turkey; and, since the mid-1990s, the ‘northern route’, which leaves northern Afghanistan through Central Asia and on to Russia (and is sometimes colloquially referred to as the ‘silk route’). Estimated number of problem opioids users in EU: 1.5 million (1.3–1.7 million), average prevalence between 4 and 5 cases per 1,000 adult population (aged 15–64). In 2005 there were around 7,000 acute drug deaths, with opioids being found in around 70% of them. There was a minimum of 49,000 seizures resulting in the interception of an estimated 19.4 tonnes of heroin. Countries reporting the largest number of seizures (descending order): UK (2005), Spain, Germany, Greece, France. Countries reporting the largest quantities of heroin seized in 2005 (descending order): Turkey, UK, Italy, France, the Netherlands.

In 2010, Russia accused United States of supporting the opium production in Afghanistan. Presently with resurgence of high output production of opium and heroin in post-Taliban Afghanistan, there is an ongoing heroin addiction epidemic in Russia which is claiming 30,000 lives each year, mostly among young people. There were two and half million heroin addicts in Russia by 2009.

Read more about this topic:  Opium Production In Afghanistan

Famous quotes containing the words the world, drug, impact and/or world:

    Upon entering my vein, the drug would start a warm edge that would surge along until the brain consumed it in a gentle explosion. It began in the back of the neck and rose rapidly until I felt such pleasure that the world sympathizing took on a soft, lofty appeal.
    Gus Van Sant, U.S. screenwriter and director, and Dan Yost. Bob Hughes (Matt Dillon)

    Behind the steering wheel
    The boy took out his own forehead.
    His girlfriend’s head was a green bag
    Of narcissus stems. “OK you win
    But meet me anyway at Cohen’s Drug Store
    In 22 minutes.”
    John Ashbery (b. 1927)

    Conquest is the missionary of valour, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world.
    Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)

    The kind of relatedness to the world may be noble or trivial, but even being related to the basest kind of pattern is immensely preferable to being alone.
    Erich Fromm (1900–1980)