An Opium Market Mystery, page 1
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Topic started on 26-4-2007 @ 01:12 AM by khunmoon

An Opium Market Mystery


www.washingtonpost.com



By Antonio Maria Costa

Opium is a commodity -- an illegal commodity, but it should still be subject to the normal rules of supply and demand.

Annual demand for opium is approximately 4,500 tons. Last year a record 6,100 tons were produced in Afghanistan alone. That country's production is 30 percent more than total world demand. Heroin prices should, in theory, be plummeting. But they are not. So what is going on?

Does opium defy the laws of economics? Historically, no. In 2001, prices surged tenfold from 2000, to a record high, after the Taliban all but eliminated opium poppy cultivation across the Afghan territory under its control. So why, with last year's bumper crop, is the opposite not occurring? Early estimates suggest that opium cultivation is likely to increase again this year. That should be an added incentive to sell.

[...]
Are farmers stockpiling the drug? Unlikely. Opium, unlike cocaine, has a long shelf life and can be stored as a form of saving, a source of liquidity and as collateral for credit. But why would poor farmers sit on more than $1 billion worth of stock when they are struggling to make ends meet and common sense suggests that prices could easily fall?

An alternative hypothesis is that new heroin markets may be emerging somewhere we do not yet know about, perhaps in Asia. But if new markets were absorbing a 1,500-ton surplus, we would expect an increase in seizures of the drug and overdoses in these countries. That hasn't been happening.

So where is it? I fear there may be a more sinister explanation for why the bottom has not fallen out of the opium market: Major traffickers are withholding significant amounts.
(visit the link for the full news article)



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reply posted on 26-4-2007 @ 01:12 AM by khunmoon
This is very interesting. That the author is executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, could lead some to call his OP biased ...but he's not asking for more money because there is no problem but a mystery.

Street prices are NOT down though a 30% surplus have been produced, and there's no indication on an equal rise in users.

It's being withheld somewhere along the line. To meet a future demand, a sudden rise in users is expected. What could cause such a sudden rise in demand? When more people suddenly feels urged to ease a pain.

Beside disease of the individual, what cause sudden pain? Collapse of societies and economies does, not to mention what it eventually leads to. War.

'They' are planning some nasty major event to set a development which shall bring on a transformation from the present hypocrisy in interpretations of world events to something more concrete showing the true face of NWO. Dealing in world affairs. Will make people want to forget, to sleep, to ease the pain.

The majority of us, surviving the transformation, will be wanted for nothing but passive drug addicts. But don't worry, 'they' shall take care of adequate supplies.

The question is who are making this bumper stock, where do they stash it? Some contractors might be helpfull coorperating with druglords. They have the facillities and logistic to stash it and bring it. At least one contractor was infamous for cooping with CIA in drug distribution in the Indochina wars.


www.washingtonpost.com
(visit the link for the full news article)


reply posted on 27-4-2007 @ 08:34 AM by khunmoon
No suggestions about where 1600 tons of opium have gone?

It is 1.600.000 kiloes, refined it would be 160.000 kilos, equaling 1.6 billion extra doses on the street. A junkie just can't raise dossage 30 percent without dying, no idea to kill the market off.

I say somebody is stashing it for later cashing and for building up funding for times ahead, uncertain but no doubt violent, and nobody dares to say where the funding goes if it's not explicit terrorist measures. Then some say terrorists are building up opium stockpiles to relay on as funding.

Now, terrorists comes in two versions; the classic fanatic, the (suicide)bomber, and the government approved kind that comes in many shades and fights for a purpose deemed more noble than whatever the agenda of their unauthorised counterpart is.

Both sides prefer to refer to themselves in idiolizing terms, like 'freedomfighters', and their opponents as 'terrorists'. Hence, to keep it colluding with jura and within its perceptions, a lingo have been created with heartbraking terms like "unlawful combatant". Yes there're lawful killers and unlawful killers. Always been like that.

Sorry for this little rant, just to establish terrorists most likely are holding back this major bulk of 1.6 billion anaesthetic doses. Maybe they expect a lot of pain in the future.

I'd say it is US government agencies that's stashing it. Like the CIA.

Sorry I couldn't come up with anything better. Here's a link on America's Premier International Terrorist Organization
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