AFGHAN CRISIS SEND PRICE OF HEROIN SOARING

NEW DELHI: Three unrelated events in the past two months have ensured the
volume of heroin and cocaine being pumped into Delhi, besides elsewhere in
the country, has dropped significantly enough to trigger a steep price
hike. Official estimates say Delhi alone has at least 50,000 chronic heroin
users.

The crisis in Afghanistan after the World Trade Center bombings is the
latest event to have affected this market, a development which ironically
has made the drug-busters' task of tracking operators even more difficult.

Drug prices were earlier jacked up by operators after the high-profile
arrest of a hotelier on charges of cocaine abuse in Delhi last month. In
July, a diktat by Taliban supremo Mullah Omar, ostensibly banning poppy
cultivation, was also used as an excuse by drug dealers to hike rates, even
though the ban was widely believed to be an eyewash aimed only at
neutralising criticism by western nations.

"Some indications are already there. It is natural that drug prices will go
up as the Pakistan-Afghanistan border is sealed," Narcotics Control
Bureau's zonal director Abrar Ahmed said on Tuesday.

The prices of white heroin (the most expensive variety), officers say, had
been steadily rising from about Rs 1,500 per gram in July, to about Rs
2,500 by the time the first news of a drug bust by the Delhi Police came up
in late August. The post-Afghanistan crisis period has now sent prices
spiralling upwards of Rs 3,000 per gram, and set to rise much further,
sources said.

Afghanistan produces about 72 per cent of the world's poppy crop (which in
its its refined form becomes heroin) and is perhaps the biggest nerve
centre of the global drug trade.

Besides the notorious 'Silk Route' - in which drugs are smuggled to western
Europe through Central Asian countries like Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and
Tajikistan - it is also smuggled from Afghanistan into India through
Pakistan (called the Golden Crescent) for its onward journey to Sri Lanka
and the rest of the world.

Another route - The Golden Triangle - comprising Laos, Thailand and
Myanmar, also affects India.

The finance ministry, last fortnight, sent an advisory to several agencies,
including the NCB, asking them to expect heightened heroin smuggling from
Afghanistan following an increase in army patrolling in Central Asia, with
Afghans fleeing in the backdrop of a possible US attack.

NCB estimates suggest drug users in Delhi consume at least five kg of
heroin every day. While beginners need about one-sixth of a gram, veterans
are said to require about two to three grams daily. This, they said,
ensures that the operators can command any price they wish.

But at least two of the three developments have made the task of narcotics
sleuths more difficult. "Most Afghan and Nigerian peddlers were already
lying low after the hotelier's arrest. Now they have gone completely
underground," Ahmed said.

Electronic surveillance, the mainstay of all drug-busts in Delhi, has
proved useless with dealers increasingly avoiding cell-phones. "SMS and
e-mail are the preferred options now," Ahmed said. He said field officers
have also reported extreme caution by dealers while moving around in Delhi.

"We know of recent instances, where they used autorickshaws, buses and
taxis several times during one trip, only to make a call from a PCO, and
not their cell-phones," he said. This, he said, was clearly indicative of
their caution.