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Executive
Summary and Recommendations
For most of the 20th Century, morphine
and codeine have been used for the relief of pain,
suppressing coughs, and treating diarrhoea. Indeed,
in the last thirty years both opiates have been
recommended by the World Health Organisation as
essential therapeutic tools with a wide range of
medical applications and, more recently, in the
treatment of cancer-related pain. Consequently,
over the last twenty years the demand for opiate
raw materials has increased significantly.
However, mirroring this increase
in the demand for opiates for legitimate medical
and scientific needs has been an increasing concern
over the illegal use of opiates, from smoking and
eating opium in the 19th Century to smoking and
injecting heroin in the late part of the 20th Century.
The challenge for the international community has
been to establish a regulatory system that ensures
that the legitimate medical and scientific needs
for opiates are met, whilst preventing diversion
to illicit markets.
The Report seeks to assess the scale
and nature of any potential diversion from the licit
trade through a comparative analysis of the different
processes and controls applied in two source countries,
India and Turkey. It compares the different regulatory
and control mechanisms that are applied in each
of these countries and identifies lessons learned
and ‘best practice’ in the cultivation,
production and regulatory mechanisms for licit opium
poppy.
The Report consists of five main
sections and a detailed Annex. The first section
analyses the current trends in cultivation and production
amongst the main producer nations of opiate raw
materials. It highlights how recent developments
in the international trade in opiates have impacted
on the ‘traditional supplier countries’
of India and Turkey. The second section documents
the regulation and control mechanisms in Turkey
and India. It describes the chronology of events
in the cultivation, and production of opium and
the different control mechanisms that are in place
at each stage of the process in each country.
The third section analyses the ‘risk
points’ in the cultivation and production
process in Turkey and India and highlights how the
risk factor differs due to the nature of the product,
raw opium or poppy straw, and the structural mechanisms
for regulation and control. The fourth section analyses
the evidence of the extent of diversion, and its
ultimate destination both in terms of domestic consumption
and international trafficking.
The detailed Annex seeks to inform
the current discussions regarding illicit opium
production, drawing on the extensive literature
that has been written on licit opium poppy producing
nations over the last 60 years. Given that this
body of work has not been synthesised previously,
and that there is a growing debate, within the UK
and other countries, regarding the potential yield
of illicit opium poppy, this Annex provides an overview
of the salient issues that are still of relevance
to policy makers and analysts today.
The Report concludes that diversion
from licit cultivation can only be minimised if
the national authorities can guarantee that they
have the necessary resources, institutional capacity
and control mechanisms in place to ensure that they
are the sole purchaser of opiate raw materials.
It suggests that this is not the case in India and
that there is evidence of systematic leakage from
its licit opium industry. The Report suggests that
the same, however, cannot be said of Turkey.
The Report concludes that the reasons
for this difference are mainly attributed to inherent
problems associated with the production of raw opium.
However, some of the institutional mechanisms for
regulation and control at the local level are also
highlighted as being deficient.
The Report suggests that by reducing
its utility, the poppy straw method reduces the
demand for the product. The high cost of conversion,
the sheer scale of the industrial plant and materials
required, and consequently, the risk of detection,
all combine to reduce the potential for diversion.
Clearly, from the control perspective the poppy
straw method currently has significant advantages
over the production of raw opium.
The Report makes
a number of recommendations:
o It suggests that a detailed Business
Plan for the phased transition to the poppy straw
method should be produced for the licit opium industry
in India, building on the work that has already
been undertaken in India on the efficacy of converting
to poppy straw production.
o It recommends that local mechanisms
for the supervision and control of opium poppy cultivation
in India need to be reviewed, suggesting that the
current system of using village representatives
elected by fellow licensees is insufficient to prevent
diversion .
o It suggests that given the current
drought in India, that the results of the Joint
Opium Yield Survey conducted by the Government of
India and the United States Government will need
to be closely examined to ensure that the data can
be extrapolated across the states and over time.
It suggests that consideration should be given to
repeating this Survey in the 2001/2002 growing season
to ensure that the data is applicable for more than
one season.
o Of particular importance, the
report recommends that a freight profiling exercise
on shipments from, or transiting, Sri Lanka should
be conducted to assess the potential threat trafficking
via this country poses to the UK.
o The Report also recommends that
there is a need to review the increasing number
of anomalies that seem to be occurring amongst those
countries ‘producing’ opiate raw materials.
The use of seized opium for the production of alkaloids
would not seem to conform to the principals of the
Single Convention. Moreover, greater consideration
needs to be given to what the status of ‘traditional
supplier countries’ actually entails in the
context of genetically improved varieties of opium
poppy and shifting patterns in the supply of, and
demand for, opiate raw materials in recent years.
It suggests that increasing instability in the demand
for opiate raw materials from ‘traditional
supplier countries’, and in particular India,
may well be lead to increasing levels of diversion.
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