News focus |
Analysis
Late last year the United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crime
(UNODC) reported that opium
production in Afghanistan had
halved as a result of crop disease
in the main opium-cultivating
provinces of Helmand and
Kandahar (
DDN
, 11 October
2010, page 4), adding that prices
would inevitably rise as a result.
Last week drug-testing provider
Concateno reported a 50 per
cent drop in people testing
positive for opiates (see news
story, page 6) – evidence, it says,
that the UK is in the middle of a
major ‘heroin drought’.
Service user groups have been
circulating warnings of dealers mixing
heroin with other substances to make
supplies go further – and of some
users being hospitalised as result – for
some time (
DDN
, 6 December 2010,
page 5), but now Concateno is raising
the alarm about the consequences
when supplies eventually become
more plentiful, warning of a potential
spike in overdose and drug-related
death rates.
According to Concateno’s
assessment of more than 700,000 oral
fluid samples carried out on behalf of
its drug treatment clients, positivity
rates for opiates averaged 45 per cent
during the 22 months from January
2009. Between November and
December last year, however, the
average rate had dropped to 26 per
cent, falling to 21 per cent in the first
three weeks of this year.
The drop in positivity rates
‘corroborates the belief among
substance misuse professionals’ that
the UK is indeed experiencing a
widespread ‘heroin drought’, the
organisation states, with its figures
indicating a ‘disturbing trend’ of users
moving to more adulterated forms.
And with users having to use higher
quantities of drugs containing more
bulking agents, there is potential
danger when purer drugs once more
become available. The latest survey
from UNODC, the
Afghanistan opium
winter rapid assessment survey 2011
,
says it expects a ‘slight decrease’ in
opium cultivation this year, despite the
high prices brought about by the
shortage. However opium cultivation
in South East Asia jumped by 22 per
cent last year, according to UNODC,
with the potential value of production
increasing by 82 per cent, part of a
‘relentlessly upward’ trend (
DDN
, 17
January, page 5). The Serious
Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) is
keen to take credit for some of the
disruption to supply in the UK,
pointing to the dismantling of UK
distribution networks and their
international suppliers, and the dis-
placement of major trafficking groups
as a result of cross-border law
enforcement collaboration. Last year’s
severe flooding in Pakistan also
played a part, says the agency, while
there have been ‘exaggerated percep-
tions’ of the impact of poppy blight.
‘We are working very closely with
partners on the heroin route from
Afghanistan to Turkey and onwards
across Europe,’ said SOCA’s branch
head of drugs and firearms – and new
ACMD member (see story, page 4)
Nigel Kirby. ‘High-quality intelligence
is being produced, shared in real time,
and acted upon. This is enabling
international law enforcement to take
effective action against the people
behind the heroin trade in a variety of
ways, from the seizure of over
2,000kg of heroin in 2009/10 before it
ever reached the UK, to damaging the
criminal credibility of traffickers and
going after their assets.’ However
SOCA acknowledges that other
groups soon take the place of the
dismantled ones, so what happens
when supplies do finally start to
increase? Concateno has
communicated its concerns to the
Home Office, Ministry of Justice,
Health Protection Agency and others.
‘It’s a twofold risk,’ Concateno’s
head of oral fluids analytical services,
Peter Akrill told
DDN
. ‘There’s a risk
when heroin users are taking some-
thing where very little of it is heroin
and quite a lot of it is something they
don’t really know – a risk of them
ending up in hospital and the medics
don’t know what to treat because they
don’t know what they’ve taken. And
there’s the risk when heroin is more
readily available that people have
reduced their tolerance and might get
a higher hit than they can cope with.’
Should services be focusing on
warning their clients about the situation?
‘I think most treatment agencies
are aware of what’s happening and
have their own policies about what to
do, but I have seen some services
that are trying to put forward
information to service users warning
them to be careful about what they’re
taking and not to take too much at
once if they don’t know what it is. It is
something that government agencies
are aware of, and they’ve been
hearing about it from the policing side
of things as well – SOCA are saying
that a lot of this is due to their
activities. Whether that’s the case or
not, I don’t know.’
Is this the most extreme drought
his organisation has witnessed? ‘It is,
yes,’ he says. ‘We haven’t seen this
before. Even when there’s been a
heroin crop problem in the past it
doesn’t seem to have manifested itself
so much on the amount of heroin
available on the streets. We see one or
two per cent changes from one month
to the next, but to have such a big
change is something that’s very
unusual. For us, this is unprecedented.’
Afghanistan opium winter rapid
assessment survey 2011 available at
www.unodc.org.
Overdose risk warning for heroin users
A British soldier with seized drugs and processing equipment in Sangin Valley,
Helmand Province. Photo: CSgt Baz Shaw/MoD
DDN looks at whether the current
‘heroin drought’ will mean serious
problems when supplies increase.
7 February 2011 |
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