The Threat of Asia's Narcotics Industry

The use of ATS ( Amphetamine-Type Stimulants ) has increased over the passed few months by a mountain slide. This stimulants still supports heavy addiction, but nothing that chemical dependency counseling will not address. According to the United Nations the use of ATS used by people in a 12 month period is more than the number of people who have used heroin and cocaine, in a year, combined! Here is the interesting article...

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"Back on Oct. 17, Iranian border guards clashed with drug traffickers on the wild Iran-Afghan frontier and subsequently seized 331 lbs of narcotics contraband. The incident would be just one of many such skirmishes that take place every week, were it not for one difference: The seized drugs were not the usual suspects of Afghan opium and hashish, but rather synthetic drugs, highlighting alarming changes to the Southwest Asian narcotics industry."

Synthetic drugs, such as potent crystal meth (called "shisheh," or "glass" in Farsi), LSD and various forms of refined heroin (including a smokable, condensed-rock form referred to locally as "crack") are flooding South Asia and feeding the region's underground drug culture. Iranian authorities recently stated that the increase in synthetic drugs over the past two years is part of a nefarious marketing strategy by drug traffickers to change addiction behaviors and transform demand from conventional drugs like opium and hashish to those most prevalent in the West. However, the implications of the emerging trends reported from the Iranian front are not restricted to regional concerns. Rather, the production of synthetic drugs -- especially cheaply made amphetamine-type-stimulants (ATS), which include the street variants of ecstasy -- has major global implications for addiction habits, social and health costs, as well as security concerns.

Globally speaking, the demand for ATS is exploding. According to United Nations statistics, the number of people who have consumed ATS at least once within a 12-month timeframe exceeds the number of people who have consumed cocaine and heroin combined" This is something in serious need of Alcoholism help." In Pakistan, ATS seizures surged 64 percent between 2005 and 2006; in Iran, seizures increased 60 percent between 2008 and 2009. Only two years ago, abuse of synthetic drugs like ATS in South Asia was limited to affluent young people because of high prices and limited availability. But with increased manufacturing of these harmful stimulants, market prices are dropping quickly. Iran's Drug Control Headquarters indicates that the price of high-quality shisheh decreased significantly between 2008 and 2009, falling from $45,000 to $57,000 per pound to $4,500 to $6,800 per pound. Saeed Sefatian, deputy head for medical treatment of addicts at Iran's Drug Control Headquarters, told reporters that no users of synthetic drugs were registered between 2004 and 2005, but that three years later 4 percent of all addicts used synthetic substances, with the figure having probably doubled since then.

 

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The rise in ATS consumption among addicts in both Pakistan and Iran will likely mean a rise in consumption among Afghan addicts. Some 1 million Afghans, more than 3 percent of the population, are documented drug abusers, and of these, 6 percent are documented intravenous drug-users, a form of consumption long considered taboo in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The spillover effect could be substantial.

Currently, the center of gravity for Southwest Asia's production of ATS remains Iran. According to Iranian authorities, shisheh laboratories are springing up across the region, and counterdrug operations are increasingly seizing multipound quantities of shisheh on Iranian railways destined for Turkey and Syria. Earlier this summer, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime reported that Iranian-produced shisheh was being trafficked to "lucrative markets" as far away as Southeast Asia because its manufacture outpaced domestic consumption. Global efforts to thwart the trafficking of amphetamine precursors leave little cause for optimism, with the overall rate of global seizures of precursors needed for the manufacture of ATS decreasing substantially since 2005.

Matthew C. DuPée is a research associate in the Program for Culture & Conflict Studies at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. His studies focus on the narcotics industry, organized crime and conflict in Southwest Asia. The opinions expressed here are his own."

Matthew C. DuPee 
24 Nov 2010

Source: http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/a...otics-industry

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