Governing the Heroin Trade

From Treaties to Treatment

Melissa Bull

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317125525
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: International Law
• Index: Law

Examining the historical, economic and political context for the current prohibition of particular drugs, this study investigates the problem of drug control and provides a systematic analysis of the development of the international system of regulation. It identifies the political rationalities that provided the basis of that system and positions these moral justifications for exercising power in relation to the practical programmes that put them into practice. The work not only catalogues the techniques and strategies employed in the process of governing illicit drugs, it also notes the failures, unintended consequences and other difficulties associated with getting such programmes to work. It will be of key interest to students and scholars of crime and criminology, law and society, medico-legal studies and health studies.

Chapter 1 The Problem of Control

DOI: 10.4324/9781315585604-1

Introduction

Internationally there is a long standing and continuing government and public concern about the use of psychotropic drugs. Diacetylmorphine or heroin, as the drug is more popularly known, has consistently been at the centre of attention. In 1983 John Kaplan called it ‘the hardest drug’ in his book of the same title, because there are no easy answers to the problems that are linked to its use and distribution. Twenty-five years later the 2007 World Drug Report produced by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime which is responsible for coordinating programs regulating illicit drugs describes how ‘unsurprisingly, the main problem drugs at the global level continue to be the opiates (notably heroin)’ (2007: 9). Heroin is a derivative of opium, and it is well known that opiates have the capacity to produce dependence in users of the drug, and as a result the problem of heroin is commonly thought of in terms of the pains of ‘addiction’. From a governmental perspective the problem of heroin and how to govern it is usually discussed as part of the broader problem of illicit drugs which make up a set of prohibited and strictly controlled substances specified in schedules to treaties which describe an international system of control.

Heroin is listed in the schedules to the ‘Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs’ (SCoND) which consolidated a world system of drug control when it was introduced in 1961. The drugs subject to the Convention (United Nations 1961, Article 2) are listed in four schedules. According to its authors, the last of these consists of a special class of drugs that are considered to be ‘particularly liable to abuse and to produce ill effects, where this liability is not offset by substantial therapeutic advantages’ (Article 3). They attract ‘special measures of control … having regard to the particularly dangerous properties of the drug’ (Article 2). Furthermore, if it is the most appropriate means of protecting the public health and welfare, parties shall ‘prohibit the production, manufacture, export and import, trade in, possession, or use of such drugs’ (Article 2). In 1973 Schedule IV included only four drugs – heroin was one of them.

Pharmacologically heroin has little in common with other substances included on this list; but bears a great deal of similarity to substances – like methadone – that are not subject to prohibition but are legally available albeit in highly regulated ways. What the drugs on schedule IV to the SCoND do share is their common status – their, production, manufacture, distribution and use are generally prohibited on an international scale and they are the focus of a coordinated and intensive system of global policing. These substances are collectively the subject of many authoritative reports, which often make distinctions between classes of drugs: opiates, cocaine, cannabis and amphetamine type stimulants. The World Drug Reports (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2006; 2007) describe the problem of opiates primarily in terms of production, trafficking and use (which is defined in terms of availability and price): providing only very limited information on the demand for treatment. This implies that the governmental problem as it currently stands is predominantly one of supply. Despite optimistic claims about stabilising patterns of use (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2006; 2007), the success of interdiction programs and downward trends in the areas under cultivation of opium, since 1998 global opium production has actually increased; in 2006 it ‘soared to a new record high of 6,610 metric tonnes, an increase of 43 percent over 2005’ levels (2007: 10). Taking this into account these reports actually document and highlight some of the failures and limits of the current international regulatory efforts (Chouvy 2006; International Drug Policy Consortium 2006; Roberts et al. 2004).

It has long been acknowledged that many of the harms associated with illicit drugs, including heroin, are linked to the control system itself. More than twenty years ago Kaplan (1983) pointed out that with widespread prohibition heroin supply reductions inevitably lead to higher street prices which force addicts to commit additional crimes to support their habits. He concluded that to some the social costs of a fully enforced prohibition out weigh the benefits. In 1988, the United Nations Conference for the adoption of the Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances was held in Vienna. It complemented the Single Convention, which was primarily directed at the control of licit activities, and was formulated specifically to deal with the growing problem of illicit trafficking. The same year Grant Wardlaw explained that the strict regulation of supply through prohibition – which the new convention promoted and reinforced:

… itself produces many of the conditions which make the use of illicit drugs so damaging. Making the drug illegal drives up its price, which in turn forces some drug users to commit money producing crimes in order to finance their habits. The high price of illegal drugs makes the profits to be made from drug trafficking very large… and encourages more sophisticated and organised criminal individuals and groups into the market as well as increasing the amounts of violence employed within the circle of drug users and traffickers. The illegal context also means that much drug use takes place in marginal social settings, thus associating drug use with other undesirable features of contemporary life and bringing large numbers of young people [who may only ever experiment with illicit drug use] into contact with them. The necessity to administer drugs covertly contributes to the health problems (such as hepatitis and AIDS) associated with drug use. Other medical complications (such as overdose and morbidity and mortality which are consequences of using adulterated drugs) are directly associated with the illegal status of substances.

In law enforcement terms alone, adopting an approach which over criminalizes drug use produces a myriad of negative consequences… In addition to income-generating crime, it is obvious that the policy generates a high level of associated criminal activity, much of it violent … Undeniably, this … has lead to a whole range of derivative problems within the criminal justice system, ranging from overloading court, prison and probation systems, to encouraging deviant and corrupt official behaviour, and engendering changes to our legal system which undermine some of its basic precepts (Wardlaw 1988: 153–4).

At the beginning of the twenty-first century these problems persist. A United Nations International Drug Control Program (United Nations International Drug Control Program (1996, 1998) report lists the costs associated with illicit drug use, production and trafficking in terms of social costs like family degeneration, drug related deaths, the spread of contagious diseases like HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C, violence, corruption and crime associated with drug markets, as well as the high economic cost of law enforcement. It notes that strong law enforcement approaches stimulate the market increasing profits and the potential that terrorist or insurgent groups will finance their operations, gain political support or undermine existing governments through the illicit drug trade. Roberts et al. (2004) highlight the significant economic costs of prohibition. For example, the United States (USA) spends about $30 billion per year on the enforcement of drug laws and it is argued that this approach is not reducing the prevalence of drug use and availability.

In addition to this very heavy financial burden these authors also point to the unintended consequences of a harsh law enforcement approach, which include health costs, and particularly an increased prevalence of HIV amongst injecting drug users. In a submission to the Canadian senate, Oscapella (2001) makes similar points explicitly arguing that prohibition itself is what makes the drug trade so profitable. Based on figures from United Nations Office of Drug Control and Crime Prevention (UNODCCP) reports the retail value of the illicit drug market is estimated to be US$400 billion a year. The production costs for a gram of heroin in Afghanistan compared to the actual retail price for the same quantity of the drug in the USA demonstrates that heroin retails for approximately 175 times more than the wholesale price in Afghanistan. Such a difference in price represents an extremely large profit margin and a huge incentive for some groups to become involved in the illicit market (Chouvy 2004c; Cornell 2006; Oscapella 2001; Stokes et al. 2000). Beyond these economic and social issues, other harms including corruption and violence are linked to the prohibitionist response. Stokes et al. (2000) describe how in Columbia three Presidential candidates, an Attorney-General, Justice Minister and more than two-hundred judges had been killed through random acts of violence designed to counter anti-narcotic programs run by the government. Beyond these deaths drug related violence has also included kidnappings, car bombings and the mid-air destruction of a Columbian jet. According to these authors the illicit drug trade impacts on the security of entire nation states, they cite examples of drug related violence and corruption in South Africa, South-East Asia, Brazil and Papua New Guinea (Chouvy 2003 on Asia). They argue that money laundering, illegal immigration, trans-national prostitution and corruption are all linked to organised crime groups who profit from illicit drugs, particularly the heroin trade. Cornell (2006) focusing on Central Asia concluded of all organised crime activity, the illicit drug trade carries the largest social, political and economic consequences, noting that recent links between terrorist groups and the illicit drug trade poses an increasing threat to regional and international security.

This book examines how the international system of drug control works, with the aim of highlighting both its strengths and limits. It makes a case study of heroin, rather than another designated illicit drug. Heroin is a derivative of opium, the drug which, as we will see, provided for the introduction of the international system of control. The regulation of opiates was initiated at a meeting in Shanghai in 1909, and provided the model for a system of global regulation which in large part has been extended to other illicit substances (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2007). In describing the system of control and analysing how it works, this book begins by examining how opium and as a result heroin became a problem and then investigates how the regulatory system as it now stands came to be the answer. In short the question this book asks is: if the prohibition of heroin is the answer, what was the question? And perhaps more importantly what, once we know the question, other answers might there be? To take this approach we must begin by recognising that opium has a long history of unproblematic use. Most stories of drug regulation begin with, or at least make some reference to, its very long documented past. Even though I am mainly concerned with more recent events related to the regulation of this specific drug, it is worth rehearsing these accounts at the beginning of this book. This heritage reminds us that current social responses to this substance and its use are culturally, historically and politically situated. It should, however, be followed with a critical eye, because its lesson is not to tell us the truth of how things were or ought to be, but rather to suggest that they could have been (and they could be) other than how they are now.

The Prehistory of Regulation

It is generally reported that the poppy plant (Papaver somiferum) originated in the Mediterranean region. The earliest reference to it is the Sumerian's recognition, circa 4000 BC, of the Papaver somiferum as the ‘plant of joy’. The Sumerians passed it on to the Assyrians, who also left useful descriptions of the process of collecting raw opium (circa 700 BC). The Assyrians passed the cultivation process to the Babylonians, who passed it to the Egyptians (Ashely 1972; Hess 1980; Hoffman 1990; McCoy 1980). Egyptian and Persian doctors treated patients with opium from the second century BC. Veterinary and gynaecological papyri and the Therapeutic Papyrus of Thebes of 1552 BC list opium among medically recommended drugs (Berridge and Edwards 1987: xxii). Frequent pictorial representations provide evidence of the role of opiate use in Greek culture, and Greek legends are filled with tales of how their gods and heroes used opium for mystical purposes. The healing properties of opium were detailed in the works of the Greek physician Hippocrates (466–377 BC), and the first extensive account of opium's pharmacology appears in the writings of philosopher and botanist Theophrastos (372–287 BC). These were also documented by Galen (130–200 AD), who probably recorded the first incidence of opium overdose around 140 AD (Berridge and Edwards 1987; Hess 1980; Hoffman 1990). The properties or effects of opium today associated with addiction or dependence appeared in Arabic literature in 1030 AD, however, in these more ancient times, the benefits of opium seem to have overridden any identifiable adverse side effects.¹

_______________

1 For example, although early Muslims condemned the use of psychoactive substances, such as hashish, opium was valued as a medicine. It was used to treat respiratory disease, diarrhoea, and insomnia. While the possibilities of dependence and overdose were recognised, they did not produce the condemnation of the drug (Hoffman 1990).

Arab traders brought the drug to India around the ninth century AD (Hoffman 1990), where its use spread rapidly. It was recommended for a variety of purposes: to quiet infants, as an aphrodisiac, and to give courage to soldiers. Its use also spread to China, where it was consumed in an edible form and valued for its medicinal properties. In that country, Portuguese traders introduced opium smoking in the sixteenth century. It became so fashionable in the early seventeenth century that the Emperor declared it illegal in 1729 because it offended Confusian sensibilities (Beeching 1975: 21). While this 1729 edict was popularly supported it was no...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• 1 The Problem of Control
• 2 Regulating Opium
• 3 Preserving the Nation State
• 4 An Ungoverned Domain
• 5 Supply in Demand
• 6 Security and Freedom: Rethinking Drug Control
• References
• Index