Trade heroin

League of Nations adopts strict rules governing international heroin trade. 

Internationally, heroin s use as a medicine wasn t regulated until 1925 when the League of Nations adopted strict rules governing international heroin trade. The same body later stipulated that heroin producers could only manufacture quantities sufficient for medical use, though these guidelines were unenforceable and largely ignored. 

After federal bans on opium, black markets developed to supply the demand. World War II temporarily interrupted opium smuggling routes. After the war, smuggling resumed with the U.S. government becoming involved in struggles in Southeast Asia that are sometimes blamed for fostering opium production and the heroin trade. 

There are two points of special relevance for diamonds to the international heroin traffic. The first is that, in value relative to size and weight, diamonds are the closest approximation to heroin as a store of value for furtive use. Secondly, the De Beers-controlled international diamond cartel operates according to a pyramidal structure identical to that of the world heroin trade. 

Most Americans knew little about Afghanistan or the Taliban prior to September 11,2001, but those who follow the heroin trade have focused on Afghanistan for decades. 

Currently, drug trafficking is a 400-billion-per-year industry in our country and represents 8% of the world s trade. According to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Americans currently spend 46— 79 billion annually on just two (of many possible) psychoactive drugs cocaine and heroin (Kari Associates, 2004). The Bureau of Justice Statistics (1999) indicates that between 60% and 83 % of the nation s correctional population have used drugs at some point in their lives, roughly twice as many as others in the U.S. population. 

More concrete information is required on the substances actually used in the illicit manufacture of methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, commonly known as Ecstasy) and on the methods of diversion of the acetic anhydride used for illicit heroin manufacture in Afghanistan. Those situations must be addressed in the near future and, for example, a limited-time operation for monitoring the international trade in safrole will be launched shortly under Project Prism. The Board is also participating in capacity-building exercises in Afghanistan under Operation Topaz. 

Operation Topaz, launched by the Board in collaboration with concerned Governments in 2000, continued to prove effective during 2004 in providing participating Governments with an effective tool to monitor the licit international trade in acetic anhydride, a critical chemical used in the illicit manufacture of heroin and also in providing an essential network to quickly track back seized or intercepted shipments of the substance. 

The Board is pleased to note that, during 2004, two additional countries, Serbia and Montenegro and Turkmenistan, joined the operation. Their participation is considered very important. In the case of Serbia and Montenegro, traffickers have targeted that country for the diversion of acetic anhydride from licit trade to be subsequently smuggled into areas where illicit heroin... 

With the current increase in both illicit opium cultivation and the subsequent manufacture of heroin in Afghanistan, the Board continues to pay special attention to shipments of acetic anhydride to the region. During 2004, however, no shipments of acetic anhydride in licit international trade were reported to Afghanistan, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan only two shipments have been imported by Pakistan. Furthermore, with the exception of a single seizure of 375 litres of acetic anhydride in Afghanistan, no seizures of the substance have been reported by any of those countries. 

But these regulations were not successful in eliminating the abuse of opium and its derivatives. Global conflicts and changing trading venues resulted in ups and downs in the consumption of opium across the globe, but opium (primarily in the form of heroin) continues to be a major trade commodity with sales in the billions of dollars per year. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of addicts around the world continue to battle the unrelenting power of heroin to this day. 

By the turn of the twentieth century, however, it was too late. Even with heroin in disrepute, it had already gained a strong foothold as a profitable worldwide commodity, and its production and trade could not be stopped. Heroin, even more so than opium, was an ideal drug for trade. Heroin, as a white powder, was lighter than opium, much more potent, and much... 

The creation of tougher national and international laws in the late twentieth century has resulted in a slight transformation of the opium trade. Laws have become stricter and limited success has been made in raising public awareness concerning the dangerous nature of opium and its constituents. The trade has not stopped, however it has only changed hands. In the past, the demand for opium created a large and complex distribution chain, complete with opium producers, suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and consumers. Today, that trade, while now primarily in the form of nonmedical pharmaceutical use and heroin, is equally complex and perhaps even more profitable than ever. 

By the time opium was banned by the U.S. Congress in 1905, the abuse of black market heroin had already taken hold. In 1910, Britain signed an agreement with China to dismantle the opium trade. But the profits made from its cultivation, manufacture, and sale were so enormous that no serious interruption would be felt until World War II closed supply routes throughout Asia. And although Bayer ended the manufacture of heroin for medicinal use in 1913, illicit importation and distribution networks in New York and San Francisco were already well established. 

French Corsicans and Italian-American Mafiosi played a major role in funneling opium, grown in Turkey and Southeast Asia and processed as heroin in French underground labs, to America. Mexican and Chinese gangs were active in the drug trade in the Southwest and on the West Coast. Tons of heroin reached the United States and the demand increased to epidemic proportions..—... 

When Sam Bronfman sold his rotgut to American mobsters, supplied by the old British distillers and financed by the old British banks, it was a matter of free enterprise what the mob did with it after it crossed the American border was of no concern to him. When Meyer Lansky made his first heroin connection with Britain s dope-trading Keswick family in Shanghai in 1920, the sale was legal and in the light of day what the mob did with the heroin later was not the responsibility of Britain s Far East traders. 

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