The Narcotics Market & Steps to Fight Drug Trafficking

Prepared for

Professor Md. Fazlur Rahman

Adjunct Faculty

Bangladesh University of Professionals

Prepared by

Zarin Rahman

Roll: 2023011062

Session: 2019-2020

Dept. of BBA-General

Faculty of Business Studies

Bangladesh University of Professionals

Submission Date

7 th May, 2020
 Table of Contents

List of Tables..............................................................................................................................................3
Executive Summary.....................................................................................................................................4
Section I......................................................................................................................................................6
Introduction to the Narcotics Market.......................................................................................................6
Introduction.........................................................................................................................................6
Statement of the Problem.....................................................................................................................7
Significance of this study.....................................................................................................................7
Scope of the Study...............................................................................................................................7
Review of Related Literature...............................................................................................................8
Methods of the Study...........................................................................................................................9
Limitations of the Study......................................................................................................................9
SECTION II..............................................................................................................................................10
Findings, Conclusions & Recommendations.........................................................................................10
Introduction.......................................................................................................................................10
Findings.............................................................................................................................................10
Heroin & Opium Seizures in Central Asia.......................................................................................10
Gateway to Central Asia................................................................................................................11
Drug Related Arrests.....................................................................................................................12
Methods of Obtaining Drugs.........................................................................................................14
HIV Increase due to Drug Use.......................................................................................................15
Conclusions........................................................................................................................................15
Recommendations.............................................................................................................................16
References.............................................................................................................................................17
List of Tables

1. Approximate whole sale prices for heroin & raw opium of both high & low quality in
Dushanbe in 2005, 2008, 2009 (1 USD/kg)

2. Approximate whole sale prices for heroin & raw opium of both high & low quality in
Khatlon region in 2005, 2008, 2009 (1 USD/kg)

3. Approximate whole sale prices for heroin & raw opium of both high & low quality in
Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region in 2005, 2008, 2009 (1 USD/kg)

4. Approximate whole sale prices for heroin & raw opium of both high & low quality in
Soghd in 2005, 2008, 2009 (1 USD/kg)
 Executive Summary

Introduction

This report presents the role of different parties in the drug trafficking business. The evidence of
involvement of the law enforcement agencies in the drug trade is reviewed. The study also
analyzes the rise in prices of drugs, the spread of drugs across Asia & the role played by
Tajikistan in the transmission of drugs. The information from trusted media outlets & web
portals has been used. Interviews conducted by respected individuals are mentioned. It brings a
number of interesting details about the distribution of street level drug trade & discusses the
policies related to drug trafficking.

Findings

 The drug trade is growing as cellular communications are used to arrange meetings or
direct delivery of drugs to one’s home by the dealer instead of the previous practice of
using specially-designated areas.
 An emerging tendency amongst dealers to have purchasers transfer money to their bank
accounts has been seen
 Heroin in Tajikistan is more available, easier to acquire and of higher quality than before
& the spike in prices is consistent with the potency.
 A strong correlation between HIV risk behaviors and expanding HIV epidemics among
injecting drug users can be seen
 The Tajik drug market can be connected to drug markets in other countries through new
routes between Tajikistan, China & Iran

Conclusion

This research concludes that the law enforcement officials are helping the drug trade for their
personal profit & recommends ways (Example drug users can be given opioid substitution
therapy, drug dealers can be used to expose corrupt law enforcement officials, drug treatment
instead of incarceration can be given to drug users etc.) to deal with both drug dealers, users,
consumers & the corrupt officials that facilitate the drug trade.

Figure 1
 The Narcotics Market & Steps to Fight Drug Trafficking

Section I

Introduction to the Narcotics Market

Introduction

The study analyses the ties between the government structures and the illegal narcotics trade, the
mechanisms of the narcotics market in Tajikistan & the effect of the drug trade in Tajikistan on
Central Asia. While interactions between members of the law enforcement community, petty
drug dealers and individual drug users form the lynchpin of the drug market, the upper world-
underworld dynamics cannot be fully explained by the competitive nature of their relationships.
The law enforcement agents allow low-level dealers to engage in this ‘unsavory’ business in
exchange for handsome fees (bribes) and information on drug users, whom they can target in
order to extort more money or to fulfill arrest quotas.

This research illustrates the state of rampant

corruption in Tajik law enforcement agencies
and prisons where police and prison officers
directly contribute to the distribution of drugs.
The data from the Tajik Drug Control Agency
suggests that the volume of opiates coming to
Tajikistan has diminished over the past few years.
However, the reported reduction in opiate in
Tajikistan, appears to be misleading as corruption
in law enforcement has kept the country awash Figure 2
in drugs.
To address these concerns, this study suggests stepping up state prosecution of corrupt police and
corrections officers, re-visiting contemporary drug policies, introducing policies that discourage
fulfilling quotas in prison by arresting those that need help & not punishment, drug treatment and
legal aid opportunities to those who use drugs in both community and prison settings.

Statement of the Problem

The rampant corruption has enabled the drug trade to grow. Drug abuse is destroying lives all
over the world. The violence, crime & death that come with the drug trade are evident. The
purpose of this study is to provide researchers with a unique insight regarding certain aspects of
the internal workings of the drug market like distribution, availability, quality, prices of drugs &
the effects of the drug trades in Tajikistan across Central Asia.

Significance of this study

This study is important not only because of what it tells us about the drug trade and how it might
reform drug policy in Tajikistan, but because it has implications for the whole region. How
things stand in the matters of drug control in the Central Asian country has obvious ramifications
for drug markets in cities far from Tajikistan. Moreover, Tajikistan’s law enforcement agencies
receive a lot of financial & technical aid from foreign countries to fight drug trafficking.
Therefore, an effective return on that investment depends on independent information from a
variety of sources regarding the kinds of problems that exist within these structures.

Scope of the Study

While this study is limited to Tajikistan, it can provide insight into the world of narcotics around
the whole planet. Most developing countries have similar scenario with corruption. The
relationship between law & crime around the world is rather complex & this study can shed light
in that area. Most of the data used for this study was collected in 1980-2018
Review of Related Literature

The first mention of the drug ‘ecstasy’ in Tajikistan was in the Tajik Drug Control Agency’s
2006 report. And according to the UNODC, in November 2010, Tajik police confiscated 1880
pills that were allegedly smuggled in from the Baltic countries via Russia. And then, in the May
of 2011 police arrested a local man from Kulyab with 500 pills of ecstasy. He revealed that he
got the pills from a dealer in Afghanistan and brought them to Dushanbe to sell in the local night
clubs.

This raises questions about how the Tajik drug market is changing. This involvement of Afghan
citizens in the distribution of ecstasy in Tajikistan has serious implications. Experts have
expressed concerns about the flow of opiates from Afghanistan to Tajikistan. Aforementioned
reports indicate that drugs are traveling in both directions. These bilateral flows need to be
investigated thoroughly.

It is also noted in various studies that members of the law enforcement community provide
protection to drug dealers. The police are known to force drug users to buy or sell confiscated
drugs.

A report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy notes, “even the largest and most successful
operations against organized criminals (that take years to plan and implement) have shown to
have a marginal and short-lived impact on drug prices and availability.” Instead of bringing the
organizing bodies to justice, law enforcement officials have often been satisfied to simply arrest
and prosecute individual drug users for possession. Many of these arrests occur because the
police plants drugs on their targets.

The difference between the legal and the criminal are rather blurry. They tend to operate against,
with and for each other, developing antithetical or symbiotic relationships along the legal-illegal
continuum. This can be supported by the emerging evidence from post-Soviet Central Asian
republics supports the conclusions from Nikos Passas’ recent study. This study also reveals that
in some Central Asian countries, law enforcement agents control a small proportion of drug
trade. They even seem to be willing to so-operate with the underworld networks by allowing
low-level dealers to engage in this ‘unsavoury’ business in exchange for a handsome ‘patronage’
fees (bribes) and information on drug users, whom they target in order to extort more money or
to fulfill arrest quotas.” What some of these scholars make the need for more analytical work,
solid empirical data and research into the historical circumstances clear.
Methods of the Study

Most of the data of this study was collected from various trusted web portals, researches &
interviews done by leading Universities of the world & has testimonies of people in the
surrounding area published in other studies.

After data collection from various sources it was analyzed & verified. It was then compiled in an
organized manner in the study. The data has been further verified by cross referencing with
various statistics published by the country’s info banks. Simple statistical techniques were used
to achieve the results of the report.

Surveys & interviews taken by notable organizations & universities are further used as data
source. The backgrounds of the people interviewed were checked and the respondents of the
survey were all from different law enforcement agencies.

Limitations of the Study

This study is limited to the country of Tajikistan. However, Tajikistan can demonstrate the
scenario seen in most of Central Asia. The interviews & surveys were not taken first hand &
none of the data can be classified as primary data. All the data used and analyzed is secondary
data.
 SECTION II

Findings, Conclusions & Recommendations

Introduction

This study was conducted to show the different ways the drug business affects the people and the
mechanism & workings of the drug trade across Central Asia. The study illustrates information
about the rise of prices, quality & quantity of the drug sold & bought. It also reveals how law
enforcement agencies affect the drug trade by participating and aiding rather than restricting
favored drug dealers.

Findings

Heroin & Opium Seizures in Central Asia

Data on drug seizures in Central Asia show the amount of drugs present in each country and the
effort given by national law enforcement agencies and their respective governments. Usually,
opiate seizures in Central Asia have mostly been concentrated in Tajikistan. The majority of
products are assumed to cross the border from Afghanistan following the “northern route”
towards Europe and the Russian Federation. Between 1996 and 2006, Tajikistan has affected
48% of opium seizures & 73% of heroin seizures. Khatlon a province on Tajikistan’s border with
Afghanistan shows the highest amount of heroin seizures further emphasizing Tajikistan’s
gateway to the north route.

Figure 3
UNODC estimated that in 2006, heroin of 118 metric tons were smuggled through Central Asia.
Of the volume of drugs estimated to have been smuggled, only a fraction (3.1% or 3,651.2 kg)
was seized. Of this amount, Tajik authorities seized almost 4 times the amount of other Central
Asian countries at 2,097.5 kg.

Gateway to Central Asia

The reports of drug seizures in Tajikistan confirm the country’s status as the gateway for drugs
from Afghanistan to Central Asia. Approximately 60% of all Afghan opiates that enter Tajikistan
cross the places surrounding the Afghan-Tajik border in Western Tajikistan.

Figure 4
The drug seizures in Tajikistan are among the highest in Central Asia & yet it doesn’t seem to
reduce the amount of drugs that reach the streets. A cause of this may be Red Heroin. Heroin
confiscated by the law enforcement is known as Red Heroin. Red heroin is known to be sold by
the police by the hands of local drug dealers.
 Figure 5

Drug Related Arrests

According to an overview of the drug trade in Tajikistan in 2010, those who have been arrested
for drug-related crimes or even on suspicion of having committed drug related crimes, tend to be
over the age of 30 (67%), and are unemployed (83.8%). 5.3% were women and accounted for
5.8% of those prosecuted for drug-related crimes. In the previous years, the percentage of
women arrested for drug crimes accounted for 5.8% in 2009, 5.4% in 2008, 10.5% in 2007, 9.1%
in 2006 and 8.4% in 2005. In 2010, 43 foreign nationals were arrested on drug charges, mostly
consisting of Afghanistan citizens. In 2010, 64.7% people arrested for drug crimes were
unemployed and not studying. Almost a quarter of them (24.8%) in 2010 had prior convictions.
A lot of them had a diagnosis of “drug addiction”. Previously, the rate was 7.7% in 2009, 17.4%
in 2008, 10.9% in 2007 and 8.2% in 2006. From the ratio of convictions for drug-related crimes
to the number of registered drug-related crimes it can be seen that from 2001 to 2006, 0.93 to
1.49 persons were convicted on average for each identified drug-related crime.

Data regarding this disproportionate rate is enough evidence to conclude that the arrest of the
drug users and dealers does not lead to the downfall of criminal rings who are behind it. Drug
couriers or individual dealers, are replaced on the streets almost immediately.
Methods of Obtaining Drugs

Over the last few years, the drug market in different places of Tajikistan has become more
“mobile”. In Dushanbe, instead of the houses of small drug dealers, the emerging tendency is for
the dealer and buyer to arrange a meeting by phone, with the venue often being open-air produce,
clothing or industrial markets (although hotels, dormitories and street corners are common too).
Some buyers, reportedly, transfer money to the dealer’s bank account to reduce the risks of
arrest. With larger transactions, dealers deliver the drugs straight to the buyer’s home.

Home delivery is done for trusted clients who buy more than one dose. This is convenient for the
drug dealers as it means no interactions with the police.
HIV Increase due to Drug Use

The continued expansion of HIV in Central Asia is primarily attributable to:

 The fast spread of opiate use

 the high proportion of the use of injections to consume drugs
 unsafe practices such as sharing needles

Figure 6

The increase & the preference of using injections for drug consumption can easily be explained
by the price & efficiency. Sharing needles and other injecting paraphernalia is common & it
increases the risk of HIV transmission.

Conclusions

There is an obvious link between the drug dealers and the law enforcement agencies. The rate of
drugs seized by the police doesn’t seem to decrease the flow of drugs. It can be concluded from
the study that the police are directly or indirectly helping in the drug trade. The prices of drugs &
the risk of HIV can also be seen. The flow of drugs from Tajikistan from Afghanistan throughout
Central Asia is also noted. There are some steps that can be taken to stop this heinous trend.
Recommendations

Targeting drug users with opioid substitution therapy will bring a positive difference in
their lives.
Law enforcement agencies can engage with the local drug dealers and financially reward
them to expose and condemn law enforcement agents who have turned from drug fighters
to drug dealers.

Drug treatment should be made an alternative to incarceration.

Police operations need to be redirected to arresting larger players in the drug market
rather than petty dealers.

Observing the alarming trend of HIV & other blood related diseases in prison, it is
recommended that needle and syringe programs, opioid substitution therapy and other 19
harm reduction and drug treatment interventions are introduced in Tajik penitentiary
facilities.

Penalties should be given instead of making arrests, whenever possible. These penalties
can help in some way with the development programs for drug-related problems.

.
References

 APMG. (2009). Report on project: ‘Support to national AIDS response to scale up HIV
prevention and care services in Tajikistan.’ AIDS Projects Management Group: For
UNDP Tajikistan.
 Cornell, S. (2007). Drug smuggling in Central Eurasia. In Transnational threats:
Smuggling and trafficking in arms, drugs, and human life, ed. Kimberley L. Thachuk,
94–111.Westport and London: Praeger Security International.
 De Danieli, F. (2010). Silk Road Mafias: The political economy of drugs and state
building in post-Soviet Tajikistan. PhD dissertation. School of Oriental and African
Studies.
 Global Commission on Drug Policy. (2011). On drugs. Report of the Global Commission
on Drug Policy. Retrieved June 3, 2011, from http://
www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/Report
 Hilton Cordell Productions. (2002). Afghanistan: Drugs, guns and money.
 HRW. (2003). Kazakhstan. Fanning the flames: How human rights abuses are fueling the
AIDS epidemic in Kazakhstan. Human Rights Watch: 15, no. 4 (D).
 ICG. (2001). Central Asia: Drugs and conflict. International Crisis Group: Asia Report
no. 25.
 Killias, M. & Aebi, M. (2000). The impact of heroin prescription on heroin markets in
Switzerland. Crime Prevention Studies, 11, 83–99.
 Kupatadze, A. (2008). Organized crime before and after the Tulip Revolution: The
changing dynamics of upperworld-underworld networks. Central Asian Survey, 27(3),
279–299.
 Latypov, A. (2008). Two decades of HIV/AIDS in Tajikistan: Reversing the tide or the
coming of age paradigm? The China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, 6(3), 101–128.
 Lewis, D. (2011). Reassessing the role of OSCE police assistance programing in Central
Asia. Open Society Foundation, Central Eurasia Project: Occasional Paper Series no. 4.
 Marat, E. (2006). The state-crime nexus in Central Asia: State weakness, organized
crime, and corruption in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Washington, D.C.: Central Asia–
Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program.
 McCoy, A. (2003). The politics of heroin: CIA complicity in the global drug trade,
Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, Central America, Colombia. Chicago: Lawrence Hill
Books.
 McCoy, A. (1999). Requiem for a drug lord: State and commodity in the career of Khun
Sa. In States and illegal practices, ed. Josiah McC. Heyman, 129–167. Oxford and New
York: Berg.
 McCoy, A. (2004). The stimulus for prohibition: A critical history of the global narcotics
trade. In Dangerous harvest: drug plants and the transformation of indigenous landscape,
ed. Michael Steinberg, Joseph Hobbs, and Kent Mathewson, 24–111. Oxford and New
York: Oxford University Press.
 Moises, N. (2011). The drug trade: The politization of criminals and the criminalization
of politicians. Working paper. Prepared for the First Meeting of the Global Commission
on Drug Policy.