The Taliban claims opium poppy cultivation was stopped and the flow of illegal drugs halted when it was last in power in Afghanistan. But although there was a sharp drop in - when it was last in control - opium poppy cultivation in Taliban-held areas has risen in subsequent years.
Opium poppy plants can be refined to form the the basis for several highly addictive drugs, including heroin. After the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said: "When we were in power before there was no production of drugs. He said "we will bring opium cultivation to zero again" and that there would be no smuggling. At first, opium poppy cultivation rose substantially under Taliban rule - from around 41, hectares in , to more than 64, in , according to the US State Department.
But in July the Taliban banned opium poppy farming in areas they controlled. And a UN report in May "observed the near total success of the ban in eliminating poppy cultivation in Taliban controlled areas". Thebaine in its raw form is a toxic opiate alkaloid and only laboratory testing can confirm the quantities present.
The well-known opiate alkaloid morphine may also be present in Victoria's poppies, however it is impossible to identify which ones with the naked eye and misuse of morphine can have serious consequences. Poppies grown in Victoria require industrial processing to produce the compounds valued for medicines. Any ingestion of poppy plants should be treated as an emergency — call immediately for an ambulance.
For further information about the poppy industry in Victoria email alkaloid. Growing poppies Poppies cannot be grown in Victoria without a cultivation licence issued by Agriculture Victoria and a valid contract with a licensed processing company. Licensed processors in Victoria are: Sun Pharmaceuticals Palla Pharma In Victoria, poppy crops will be planted between autumn and spring and harvested between December and February.
The leftover straw will be ploughed in within seven days of harvest. However, in the case of this process, too, the size of the equipment must correspond to the large quantities of raw material required.
This means that the vessels for extraction, solution and precipitation must hold several thousand liters, and that filtration and distillation installations of corresponding size will be needed. This will necessarily include crushing equipment and enormous storage sheds, because the harvest is gathered in only once a year, and supplies have to be kept in dry storage for a whole year.
I have played a not unimportant part in developing and building up and, later, managing such a factory, and I can therefore give an assurance, based on a close knowledge of the facts, that none of the processes can be used industrially without an investment of the order of several million DM, if the factory is to have an average capacity of processing t of raw materials per day i.
In the abnormal circumstances of illegal manufacture, very different criteria will probably apply. The fact remains, however, that a number of complicated installations of certain minimum sizes will be required.
For the manufacture of one kg of morphine by the relatively simple Kabay process operating with aqueous extraction, an average of kg of poppy capsules will have to be used, occupying a volume up to ca. In contrast, only about 9 kg of opium, with a volume of about 9 litres, are required to produce 1 kg of morphine, the raw morphine being directly precipitated after the opium has been dissolved in a concentrated aqueous solution and purified.
In built-up areas, even an extremely small factory for the processing of poppy capsules would therefore not remain unnoticed. In uninhabited areas, on the other hand, there would be no source of power, such as steam and electricity and no means of transporting the enormous quantities of raw and auxiliary materials.
The illegal manufacture of opium alkaloids from poppy capsules is therefore simply not feasible. It should be remembered, moreover, that all these difficulties do not exist in the case of use of opium which may be obtained through illegal channels. Poppy capsules must be regarded as a drug which, as far as direct consumption is concerned, cannot produce or promote drug addiction;. Poppy capsules are virtually useless as a raw material for illegal opiates manufacturers.
They should therefore be viewed quite differently from opium for control purposes. Man's drug addiction originated with the use of opium, and it is this concentrated juice of the poppy plant which even today is extremely dangerous, not only because of direct consumption, but also - and above all - because it is a convenient basic material for the illicit manufacture of morphine.
Poppy capsules are very far from being as dangerous. All these facts and figures answer the above-mentioned question of the point at which a control of poppy capsules would be necessary to prevent abuse.
After careful and concientious examination, the conclusion emerges that in those countries which do not produce opium there is no good reason why their extremely widespread cultivation of the poppy, which has been practised for centuries and is intended for the production of poppy seeds, should - merely because of the incidental production of poppy capsules - be subject to the same control measures as cultivation of poppy in opium-producing countries. Anyway, it can be seen from the seizure reports received by the Secretariat of the United Nations, that as far as it is known "poppy straw" does not appear in the illicit traffic and has never been used as raw material by clandestine manufacturers of morphine.
A very considerable body of practical experience relating to the acquisition and processing of poppy straw as raw material seems to indicate that the existing international and national control provisions are sufficient to prevent abuse - i. If, however, more control is considered to be necessary, reference may be made to the legislation of Switzerland [ 10 ] and Austria [ 11 ] , as well as to the provisions of the United Nations Opium Protocol of 23 June [ 12 ] and the First Draft of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs [ 13 ].
In Switzerland , poppy is controlled only when used for the manufacture of alkaloids and must in this case be declared by the manufacturer to the competent authorities [ 10 ]. In Austria , farmers may deliver poppy straw only to licensed factories [ 11 ]. Transmit annually to the Board, at a date fixed by it, the statistics of poppy straw imported or exported during the previous year for any purpose whatsoever. Such legislation, combined with strict control of opium production where permitted and medical supervision which requires the pharmaceutical use of poppy capsules in decoctions or other galenic preparations to be subject to prescription, is fully sufficient, in my view, to prevent abuse of poppy cultivation in all countries.
XIII, No. United Nations. Office on Drugs and Crime. Site Search. Poppy straw: a problem of international narcotics control Abstract Poppy straw is derived from the plant Papaver somniferum L.
So far as the order of magnitude of the consumption of poppy seed is concerned, I am able to quote only the following examples based on particulars supplied by the Federal Office of Statistics, Wiesbaden, Germany, and the Central Office of Statistics in The Hague, Netherlands, according to which imports into and exports from the Federal Republic of Germany in and were as follows: Close drawer menu Financial Times International Edition.
Search the FT Search. World Show more World. US Show more US. Companies Show more Companies. Markets Show more Markets.
0コメント