EXPERTS BACK STARTLING HEROIN CLAIMS

The prime minister's startling claim yesterday that 90% of the heroin sold
on British streets comes from Afghanistan was backed up last night by
experts in the drug trade and radical law reformers. "The arms the Taliban
are buying today are paid for with the lives of young British people buying
their drugs on British streets," said Tony Blair. "That is another part of
their regime that we should seek to destroy."

Afghanistan's world domination in the heroin trade stems from a record crop
of 4,600 tons in 1999. "All the information coming from intelligence
sources and customs and excise suggest that it really is true," said Roger
Howard, chief executive of the drug information charity, Drugscope.

"They had absolutely ideal growing conditions that year and the amount they
produced was 75% of the entire world production for that year. A good 90%
of the heroin in the UK comes from Afghanistan. It may be more," he said.

Last year, a Taliban edict banned the growing of opium poppies and UN
observers reported that by earlier this year the crop had been practically
wiped out. In response, several western countries, including Britain,
pledged aid to destitute Afghan farmers during the summer.

But the Home Office said last night that large stockpiles of the 1999 crop
ensured supplies to the British market and street prices have remained
stable. It is officially estimated that there are some 270,000 heroin users
in Britain consuming about 30 tons a year with a street value of UKP2.3bn.

The Taliban is not the recipient of all this money, but it is an important
link in the chain of production.

The farmers sell to traders, believed to include Taliban leaders and
commanders as well as Afghan, Iranian and Pakistani traders. Most of the
crop production is centred around the Taliban controlled area of Jalalabad
in eastern Afghanistan, but there is also some also in areas controlled by
the opposition Northern Alliance.

A home Office spokesman said there were reports that the price of opium on
the Afghan-Pakistan border has dropped by 80% in the last three weeks from
UKP460 a kilo to UKP100 a kilo raising fears of a flood of heroin to the west.

"People who are stockpiling it are offloading their supplies probably in
anticipation of the developments that are to take place and to raise money
for arms supplies," he said. "But we do not believe the UK is about to be
flooded with cheap heroin because we have a steady supply and a steady
street price."

Tamara Makarenko, a Glamorgan University criminologist who has studied the
world heroin trade, said that according to statistics from the UN drugs
control programme, heroin production increased by 100% between 1988 and
1991 to 2,000 tons and then expanded to the bumper harvest of 4,600 tons in
1999.

"By the end of 1999 Afghanistan was said to produce 75% of the global
supply of opium, from which 80% of global heroin was produced."

This big stockpile drove the traffickers to find new routes and by the end
of last year only 20%-30% was going to Europe by the usual Iranian-Turkish
route. Last year some 40 Iranian border guards died trying to combat the
Afghan drug trade.

Ms Makarenko says the Afghan and Pakistani traders have found a new
northern route through the old Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan
and Tajikistan, and through Russia.

Roger Howard of Drugscope said this heroin had found a ready market in
Britain where the "age of first use" is coming down as teenagers smoke the
drug. It carries less of the "junkie" stigma that scared previous
generations: teenagers are progressing to heroin much more quickly.

Last night the home secretary, David Blunkett, talked down fears of British
streets being flooded by cheap Afghan heroin being sold on the world market
to raise funds for arms.

He said the street price of heroin had not risen when the Taliban banned
production and he did not believe that it would be in cheap supply if they
now started actively selling off stocks.

The government's efforts to tackle the Afghan drug trade include a
five-year strategy to try to see that new entrants to the European Union
have effect controls on their external borders. This policy is aimed
principally at Turkey, traditionally the site of the heroin factories where
raw opium is turned into heroin.

But Tamara Makarenko's warnings that the traffickers have opened a new
northern route through the old Soviet republics may mean a new strategy is
called for.