The Mystery of the Missing Opium

October 10th, 2008

Ask MI6 where it is.

Via: BBC:

It’s a mystery that has got British law enforcement officials and others across the planet scratching their heads. Put bluntly, enough heroin to supply the world’s demand for years has simply disappeared.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) describes the situation as “a time bomb for public health and global security”.

This week’s Map of the Week comes courtesy of the UNODC. It shows their latest estimate of opium production in Afghanistan – another bumper year.

A crop of 7,700 tonnes will produce around 1,100 tonnes of heroin – it basically works on a 7:1 ratio.The mystery is that the global demand for heroin is less than half that. In other words, Afghanistan only needs to produce 3,500 tonnes to satisfy every known heroin user on the planet.

Look at the graph, though.

For the past three years, production has been running at almost twice the level of global demand. The numbers just don’t add up.

Research Credit: EB, MT, others, sorry lots of email

3 Responses to “The Mystery of the Missing Opium”

  1. Loveandlight says:

    I don’t know how long of a shelf-life heroin has, but one explanation is that the excess is being secreted away or destroyed so that the extra supply doesn’t depress the price. I don’t know if such a black market would be affected in the normal way by the laws of supply and demand, but that’s the only rational explanation of which I can think right now.

  2. smarks says:

    Oh no, Mr. Bill! They’re manipulating the price of Heroin. Long/short, puts/calls what’s a trader to do when you can’t even trust the Street price of Heroin anymore?

    Better get Hank Paulson on the situation.

  3. anothernut says:

    @Loveandlight: sure makes sense to me, given:
    1) the year-after-year bumper crops of opium since we invaded
    2) TPTB aren’t making money in the regular financial markets right now

    I wonder if opiate consumption goes up during financial crises…? Seems reasonable, what with all that depression (emotional as well as financial).

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