Manon Eileen – a Writer's Blog

This is the fourth and last installment series on the Global Drugs Trafficking. Before, we discussed the basics of drug trade (Discover the Trade, pt. 1), how organic drugs are grown (How to Grow Coca and Opium Poppies, pt. 2), and how the drugs are produced (How Heroin, Cocaine and Meth are Produced, pt. 3).

Today, we’ll discuss the distribution of the drugs. After production, the drugs need to be distributed around the world. As is usual for the posts I write on drug trafficking, my source is the UNODC World Drugs Report (2010).

Distribution closely linked to demand. Where the demand is, the drugs go.

Distribution of Cocaine

Cocaine demands are high worldwide. However, there has been a shift in where the drug is in demand. Before (1998), cocaine was particularly popular in the USA. Nearly three-quarters of cocaine produced was shipped to and consumed in the US. In the past few years, demand for cocaine has increased in Europe and the amount of drugs distributed to the US and Europe are almost equal.

On the figure on the right you can see the global cocaine flows and how they have changed between 1998 and 2008. What is particularly interesting is that cocaine, these days, is more often shipped from South America to the African continent, where it is then shipped to Europe. Additionally, the Caribbean route seems to have become less popular (perhaps because of the alternative African route).

What I miss in this figure, is that it lacks information on cocaine flows to Asia. In the World Drug Report, it is mentioned that cocaine is consumed in Asia, and it has become increasingly popular on the continent. However, unfortunately I can’t say anything about the flows to the continent.

Ways of Transportation

From the Andes Region to the US

Most of the cocaine enters the US through the Mexican border. Border cities Juárez (Mexico) and El Paso (TX, USA) are where most of the drug-smuggling magic happens. The US has put fences along the national border between the two cities and regulate all road customs, but the cartels have found their ways to still get the drugs across. They have dug tunnels, and they’re not the tunnels you’d imagine. Some of these tunnels are thousands of miles long, with electricity and little mine-like trains running through them. The US border patrol has found a few of these tunnels in recent years.

Juárez is actually one of the most violent cities of the world. Since Mexico started their drugs war to break the power of the cartels in 2006, over 15,000 people have died (“Life and Death in Juárez, the World’s Murder Capital“, The Guardian, 2009).

Other cocaine shipments enter the US by water, often through big ports in Florida (particularly Miami) and Texas.

From the Andes Region to Europe

We Dutch quite often hear about cocaine smugglers in the news. “An individual was caught on Schiphol airport (Amsterdam), smuggling 2 kilos of cocaine in his belly”, or someone was caught with twenty kilos in a suitcase, or they had it concealed in their clothes. Twenty kilo, or even two, is nothing. It’s even irrelevant, which is interesting because you rarely hear about the large amounts of cocaine seized in the European ports.

Most cocaine enters Europe through the big ports. The port of Rotterdam (The Netherlands) is an important one, but due to language barriers, the cocaine smugglers (who evidently mostly speak Portuguese and Spanish) head for the big ports of Spain and Portugal. The amounts that are caught in these ports are astonishing. Occasionally “small” hauls of 300 kilos are seized, and in August 2011, the UK seized their biggest shipment of cocaine ever. The shipment consisted of 1,2 tons of cocaine, worth an estimated £300 million (nearly US $500 million) and it was destined for Rotterdam harbor (“Seized Cocaine Shipment Is The Largest Ever Seized In Britain“, UK News Gateway, 2011).

Distribution of Heroin and Opium

As I portrayed in the first, more general post on global drug trafficking, heroin has become slightly less popular, worldwide. Because of this, it has also become cheaper and thus has become more popular on the African continent and Eastern Europe (no exact causal correlation here, but this is, in a very basic sense, what’s happened).

On the figure on the right you can see the heroin and opium flows from Asia. Approximately 80% of all heroin produced comes from Afghanistan, next biggest producer is Burma (Myanmar) and a few percent come from the countries surrounding them. A few tiny percent come from the Andes Region, which aren’t even displayed in this figure.

Afghanistan has three main routes through which the heroin is smuggled, but after it’s passed through these main routes (through Pakistan, Iran and Central Asia and Russia), the heroin and opium are spread all over the continent. They seem to have a multitude of ways to smuggle the drugs.

Most of the smuggling goes by land – often carried by camels and other pack animals, in caravans. From Iran, the drugs are often carried to other destination by air or sea, in cargo containers. The shipments to North America are most often smuggled by plane.

Interestingly, what’s mentioned in the World Drug Report but not clearly displayed on the figure is that most heroin coming from Pakistan goes to the UK and The Netherlands. Pakistan is also the biggest supplier of heroin to Africa.

A recent BBC report (“Nigerian officials find heroin in shipment from Iran“, BBC, 2010) mentions a seizure of 130 kilos of heroin in the seaport of Lagos, Nigeria. The entire shipment was worth nearly $10 million, and the drugs were hidden in engine parts. What’s interesting is that in the World Drugs Report, a figure displays the nationalities of people caught in Pakistan for heroin trafficking, 32% is Pakistani and 32% is Nigerian. 14% falls in the “Other” category, the remaining 22% is made up of a lot of other African nationalities. That’s very interesting!

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 What are your thoughts about the global flows of heroin and cocaine? Are there any bits of information here that surprised you or that you find particularly interesting?

This post is part of a blog series about Global Drug Trafficking. Find part one, “Discover the Trade” here.

This week, we will discuss the cultivation of the coca plant (cocaine) and the opium poppy (heroin). As designer drugs such as methamphetamine and ecstacy are not cultivated (only organic drugs are), we will not discuss them until the next Global Drug Trafficking post, which will be on the manufacture.

The source for all statistical information in these posts is the UNODC – the United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime, and in particular the World Drugs Report 2010.

Cultivation of the Coca Plant for Cocaine

Coca (Erothroxylum Coca) is a plant native to western South America. It has always played a big role in Andean culture, where it is used to treat height sickness. People either chew on the leaves of the bush or use them for tea. The bush is mainly cultivated in Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and northwestern Argentina. The bush is cultivated often on the lower altitude slopes of the Andes, or on the highlands, depending on the species grown.

Seeds of the coca plant are sown between December and January in shadowy plots. When the plants are between 40 to 60 cm (1.5 to 2 feet) in height, they are moved to final planting holes, or, if the ground is level, in furrows.

The plants grow best in hot, humid locations, such as the clearings of forests. However, the best leaves are cultivated in drier areas, on hillsides. Once the bush is one and a half years of age, people start to collect the leaves, but only the fresh growth is harvested (the leaves are ready when they break on being bent). The first and must abundant harvest is in March, after the rainy season. The second harvest is at the end of June and the third in October or November. The bush can produce new leaves for over forty years.

The green leaves are spread in thin layers on coarse, woolen clots. They are dried in the sun and afterwards packed in sacks, which are kept dry to preserve the quality of the leaves.

In 2009, the global area under coca cultivation is approximately 158,800 hectares (ha). This is a decrease of 5% since 2008, a change mainly due to a significant decrease in Colombia (due to eradication) whereas the cultivation Peru and Bolivia has increased. Since 2000, the area under cultivation of coca has declined by 28%. Colombia represents about 43% of total coca cultivation, with Peru contribution 38% and Bolivia 19%.

Cultivation of the Opium Poppy for Opiates (mainly Heroin)

The illegal cultivation of the opium poppy (Papaver Somniferum) mainly takes place in Southwest Asia (Iran, Pakistan and especially Afghanistan) and in the highlands of Mainland Southeast Asia (Burma, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand). This area is popularly known as the “Golden Triangle”. Notably, opium poppies are also cultivated in some South American countries.

The opium poppy thrives in warm climates with low humidity. It needs only a small amount of water before and during the early stages of growth. The plant can be grown in a variety of soils, but it grows best in sandy loam soil, which is easily cultivated. Rainy, cloudy weather during growth will reduce the quantity and quality of the narcotic content.

The opium is harvested from each opium pod by making vertical incisions with specially designed homemade knives. The pod remains on the stem of the plant and after the harvest is collected, the pods dry. Once dry, the largest and most productive pods are cut from the stem. The seeds are then removed and dried in the sun after which they are stored for the next year’s planting.

An average farming family can cultivate and harvest about one acre of poppy plants per year. Most of the more fertile fields van support cultivation for ten years or more without fertilization or insecticides before the soil is depleted.

The global area used for opium poppy cultivation declined by 15% to 181,400 ha in 2009 (or by 27% since 2007). Afghanistan, most notably, produces 89% of the world’s total opium. Other large contributors are Myanmar, Latin America (particularly Mexico and Colombia), although the amounts produced are tiny compared to the amounts produced by Afghanistan. It is predicted that the downward trend of opium cultivation will continue in the next years.

Cultivating Opium Poppies as a Hobby

Worldwide, opium poppies are kept in gardens and in pots on balconies. They have gorgeous flowers, and are not harmful in such small quantities. However, the USA does not discriminate between the poppy and the opium itself. Therefore, if you grow poppies, you’re liable to be charged with a felony for possession of Level II narcotics – whether you have one or one hundred poppies in your garden. Although likely you will be apprehended, it has happened – this article reports an author’s apprehension for writing a book on the cultivation of poppies in gardens and was kept in jail for three days along with his wife, and could have been jailed for ten years.

Personally, I find this extreme nonsense. A professor (who studied opium poppies for over 25 years) in the aforementioned article says the following, with which I full-heartedly agree:

“They can make somebody high, but I don’t see it as a threat to public health. To grow enough to become an addict would take an acre’s-worth of plants and I don’t think most drug addicts are dedicated enough to become farmers.”

What do you think?