Almost all routes lead back to Afghanistan
War on terrorism: Supply
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The resumption of opium cultivation in Afghanistan will generate huge profits for the Turkish organised crime gangs that control the supply of heroin into Britain.
But police intelligence sources said yesterday that the apparent lifting of the Taliban's ban on growing poppies would not lead to Britain being flooded with cheap heroin.
The National Criminal Intelligence Service pointed out that the street price of heroin in Britain has remained stable for several years at about £70 a gram. This is in spite of a glut of heroin resulting from a bumper Taliban-sanctioned crop in Afghanistan in 1999.
But the drug's increased availability has seen its wholesale price fall from £26,000 in 1993 to £10,000 per kilogram.
Turkish organised crime retains a tight control over the estimated 30 tons a year that feed into the UK. On average, the authorities seize only two tons per year.
Some white British and Afro-Caribbean gangs are involved in street-level distribution. But the lack of inner-city turf wars is a testimony to the degree to which the market is controlled.
An NCIS spokesman said: "These profits are made not by Afghan traffickers or the Taliban but by trafficking organisations in Turkey [and] UK-based, Turkish-organised crime groups."
But as Tony Blair claimed this week, opium production has been lucrative for the Taliban. Ahmed Rashid, of the Far Eastern Economic Review, told a London drugs conference last June that: "Of the estimated Taliban budget of $100m (£67m), drugs income contributed 25 to 35 per cent of the Taliban war chest."
After the Taliban seized power over most of the country in 1996, they stepped up production of opium, particularly in Helmand, near Kandahar, and Nangarhar, near Kabul.
But Roger Howard, of the British drugs charity Drugscope, said the Afghan opposition Northern Alliance "also produce poppy", and warned against the West "getting into bed" with "some disreputable people".
Almost all heroin used in Britain originates from the North-West Frontier region. The traditional heroin route to Britain, via Iran and Turkey and then overland to the Channel ports, has been hampered by the heavily patrolled Iranian border. New supply routes have been opened across the Uzbekistan and Tajikstan borders.
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