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Comment by djb_hackernews | Hacker News Reader

Has anyone come across coverage of the heroin epidemic as it relates to the growth of heroin production in Afghanistan since the arrival of US forces? Seems like no one is connecting these dots and I'm curious why? Not to imply there is a conspiracy theory at all, it may just be that I'm more "fascinated" by that relationship than the average reader?

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Afghanistan hasn't been a significant source of US heroin in decades. The majority of heroin in the US is either from Mexico or Colombia these days. Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/09/24/pellets....

No question Afghanistan is a huge opium producer, it's just that the majority of that product ends up in Europe, not in the US. PDF source: https://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr2014/Statistics/Opium_Her...

That could still reduce the European demand for Mexican and Colombian heroin, driving down US prices, correct?

I think there certainly is a case to be made that U.S. prices are lower because there is increased global supply. That increased supply drives down competition for South American / Mexican heroin, reducing prices for the U.S. market.

I parsed the implications of the original statement as one of deployed troops picking up the habit rather than increasing the home front supply. Do you happen to have any stats about heroin abuse among Afghan vets?

I was reading it as claiming that the government that took power after the Taliban was "defeated" was ineffective at policing opium production. A glance at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanista... seems to support the idea that production increased substantially after the official Taliban government was removed.

The only thing I could really find is here: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/military/story/2012-04-2...

Long story short, the Army investigated 56 soldiers in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2011 for using / dealing.

As for the bigger question, the military really is a subset of society. Veterans end up using the same things the rest of society does to escape their problems.

Combine that with relatively easy access to pain meds and you get the same sad story we're dealing with everywhere else. Here's more info on that angle: https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/06/30/us-half-million-drug-dep...

According to a UN doc cited on wikipedia, production pre-Taliban restriction reached a peak in 1999 with a bumper crop of 4,500 metric tons. [1] 99% of this was wiped out in 2000 which amounted to a 75% reduction in the world supply of opium. So total world production was ~6,000 metric tons in 1999.

According to this 2014 UN report [2] the total area of opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan was estimated at 224,000 hectares with an average yield of 28.7kg/hectare. Converting this to metric tons: 224,000 * 28.7 / 1,000 = 6,429 metric tons of opium produced. Report cites a possible range from 5,100-7,800 metric tons produced.

So not only is Afghanistan back to pre-Taliban production levels, it is producing more than the entire world production of opium in 1999. This is just 15 years after a 99% eradication of the crop in the region.

Interestingly, the farm gate value of this opium is only $850m. Using an average of the conversion ratios cited in the report (18.5:1 for pure heroin, 9.6:1 for export-grade heroin) and a price of $60,000USD/kg of heroin [3] we get a total processed value of $27.4bn. That's a crazy amount of value locked into processing and distribution.

The Mexican govt seized ~3,600kg of opium seeds in 2014. [4] Assuming a seizure rate of 1%, we get a total opium crop of 360 metric tons, or ~5.5% of total Afghan opium production.

I'm definitely not an expert here so please correct me if I've made any mistakes in drug weight/price conversions.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanista...

[2] https://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/...

[3] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-drug-dealers-next-door-how-n...

[4] http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/mexico-poppy-produ...

> The Mexican govt seized ~3,600kg of opium seeds in 2014.

Opium doesn't come from "seeds" per se. You get opium by making a cut at the base of the poppy flower, and letting the stuff ooze out like a resin.

True, but opium plants do.

Do you have data to support this. Also is Afghanistan the lone producer of heroin? You have to be careful in making inferences like this without considering the multitude of other factors such as how easy has the process to create heroin become over the last decade, was there a drop in other drugs and why.

To your point however, I wonder if the war has enabled Big Phrama to get easier access to make there own opioids. To me it seems like the growth of Opioids for pain lead people to seek heroin and other drugs when there prescription runs out.

data to support what? I didn't make any claims. It is widely reported that the Taliban banned growing poppy (it was un-islamic) in Afghanistan and since US forces put them on the run the local war lords, who help US forces with intel, etc., have overseen the massive rebirth of the industry.

It is also widely reported that there is a heroin epidemic in the United States. To me they must be somewhat related.

Considering that most of the US drugs are either made in the US, or come up from Mexico, I think blaming countries that are on the other side of the world separated by the largest oceans is a bit ridiculous.

http://opiophilia.blogspot.com/2013/05/heroin-in-united-stat...

US Heroin comes from South America and Mexico.

'Serving All Your Heroin Needs' | Apr 17, 2015 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/opinion/sunday/serving-all...

> Most of our heroin now comes not from Asia, but from Latin America, particularly Mexico, where poppies grow well in the mountains along the Pacific Coast. Mexican traffickers have focused on a rudimentary, less-processed form of heroin that can be smoked or injected. It is called black tar, which accurately describes its appearance. Cheaper to produce and ship than the stuff of decades past from Asia, heroin has fallen in price, and so more people have become addicted.

'How El Chapo Was Finally Captured, Again' | Jan 16, 2016 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/world/americas/mexico-el-c...

> [El Chapo] was, after all, a creator of the border tunnel, underground passages equipped with lighting, ventilation and mechanical carts to smuggle drugs into the United States without having to bother with the headache of evading customs agents. In total, Mr. Guzmán’s organization is estimated to have burrowed more than 90 such passages between Mexico and the United States.

'El Chapo Faces Array of Drug Charges in United States' | Jan 16, 2016 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/11/world/americas/extradition...

> Their joint indictment charged Mr. Guzmán and another suspected leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael Zambada García, with distributing more than 500 tons of cocaine in the United States since the late 1980s. It also charged them with distribution of heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana. Prosecutors believe that the cartel may have been the biggest supplier of cocaine to the New York City area for a decade or longer. In their most recent indictment of Mr. Guzmán and Mr. García, prosecutors listed 163 separate counts of distribution of cocaine in the United States, ranging from 234 kilograms to as much as 23,000 kilos.

Just as a point of reference when you say "It is widely reported that ..." that is making a claim. You could follow that up with see here, here, and here. A useful one might be the NBC link (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/heroin-use-grows-u-s-poppy...)

That said, the article in question points out that overdoses are more closely related to the addition of Fentanyl which is 100x more powerful than Morphine [1] and that is not manufactured in Afghanistan.

[1] http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/drug_chem_info/fentanyl.pd...

Actually, no, heroin from Afghanistan travels west to Russia and Eastern Europe and creates a lot of problems there as the prices have dropped significantly, so poor people are getting hooked on it, and then can't afford the habit. In US 96% of heroin comes from Latin America, mainly Mexico. You can check it on DEA or White house official sites, for instance https://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/global-heroin-market

I have no idea about causal relationships but there is at least some data on opium production.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, opium production jumped from 74,000 hectares in 2002 to 224,000 hectares in 2014, a ~200% increase. [0] (p. 12)

Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium followed by Myanmar.

> Opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar and Lao PDR rose to 63,800 hectares (ha) in 2014 compared to 61,200 ha in 2013, increasing for the eighth consecutive year and nearly tripling the amount harvested in 2006. [1]

> In North America, although 90 per cent of the heroin in Canada originates in Afghanistan, the United States continues to be supplied by heroin manufactured in Central and South America. However, analysis of seizures indicates that while Afghan heroin currently accounts for relatively little of the heroin seized in the United States, this may be changing.

[0]: https://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/...

[1]: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2014/December/opium-...

[2]: http://www.unodc.org/wdr2015/en/opiates.html

That's really strange that Canada gets most of its heroin from Afghanistan but America doesn't.

Differences in criminal supply chains are normal. In Canada it's mainly South Asian diaspora criminal networks who import heroin, so they source from India (Afghan heroin) as they have influence in India. US it's mainly Latino networks who import heroin and have influence in Mexico and Colombia to bribe police and dockworkers thus source from there.

Absolutely. The Times ran a piece (probably a decade ago) about how heroine was becoming more popular than pot on long island because of the war in Afghanistan.

Based on my general understanding from following the "Drug War" as it relates to Mexico and Cartels, heroin is now one of the most profitable and dominant drugs being smuggled by the Sinaloa Federation (Cartel). As in heroin is the #1 preferred drug to smuggle into the US from Mexico. This is purely anecdotal from various sources, and not to discount the Afghan opaite trade.

I think there was a conspiracy theory that the Taliban had eliminated the poppy plants rather successfully in the region, and this threatened to destroy the world economy as the opium trade provided global liquidity or something. Anyway, with the current war on drugs it is hard to prove or disprove since all of this trade is clandestine anyway. I think there was also some proof the big international banks were doing a lot of drug laundering work as well, but really all these theories do is raise more questions. If we redirect the drug trade to be out in the open, I'd hope that sunlight would be the best disinfectant.

From my recollection, just before the invasion, meth and one other drug that I've forgotten the name where real popular, not the H.

So you may be on to something, but I'll need to see real data before I subscribe.

Its seems this epidemic didn't start with heroin supply flooding the streets. But with prescription opioids being so casually handed out to patients. Then when all these people where hooked there became a great demand for heroin. And the invisible hand of the market took care of the rest.

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