Opium and Heroin
Opium contains two alkaloids, phenanthrenes (morphine, codeine, C17 H19 NO3) and benzylisoquinolines. First exploited as a narcotic in Sumerian and European cultures 6,000 years ago, Muslims spread the use to India, then on to China. Clearly, throughout time, ancient priests and warriors found ways to utilize this powder. Homer described such a combatant, and so did the founder of medicine, Hippocrates. Laudanum, opium in ethanol, was widely prescribed into the 19th century.
For centuries in China, even a small village without a rice shop could have an opium distributor. British merchants in the early 1800’s smuggled this drug as trade for tea, leading to the Opium Wars, through which the U.K. gained control of Hong Kong.
Chinese emigrants employed for the transcontinental railroad brought this habit to the U.S. Opium was smoked, but derivatives were used in various tonics. President Theodore Roosevelt convened an international conference in 1902, spearheading the control of this opiate at a time when 27% of the adult male population of China was addicted. Yet, if it is true that 6,630 metric tons were produced in 2006, and the price on the streets is $16,000 per kilogram, then the value that year was in excess of $100 billion, with 150 times more going to drug traffickers than growers. And that’s only opium, which the general populace thought only was smoked by old Chinese men in dark dens. Further, this opium, losing 90% the weight, can be processed into heroin, which has a value of about $300,000/kg. We are now up to $200 billion/year if the entire crop were converted to heroin.
With apologies to Teddy, the media reports that international drug control as a multilateral program is older than the United Nations, even older than the League of Nations, beginning in 1912 to deal with opium. This has been a success story, for then, the production of opium was 30,000 metric tons. Today, it has dropped below 10,000 metric tons, so with four times more people today, the reduction of use per capita is down more than 90%. But was it this international organization, or just, plain, China, and how it governs? A century ago, with one third the present population, there were 25 million opium users. Today, there are 8.5 million drug addicts with a much larger population. The incidence is still high, but certainly better.
Regarding supply, in 2006, Afghanistan produced 92% of all the opium (obtained by drying the milky juice of the unripe seed pods of poppy), with Columbia, Mexico, Peru and the Golden Triangle (Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Viet Nam) supplying the rest. Heroin (which is diacetylmorphine, C12H23NO5, is converted by your liver to morphine) is synthesized from opium. In 2007, the Afghanistan supply went up 34%, but their world share only increased by 1%, meaning the rest of these countries also had in total a similar increase.
To make heroin, the raw opium is first boiled in water. Slaked lime (calcium hydroxide—which is made by mixing lime, or calcium oxide, in water) is then added to form a solution, which is filtered to remove any impurities. Ammonia is used to precipitate the morphine, which is filtered out as white chunks of morphine base, known as Heroin Number 1. But this is not yet real heroin. Heroin #1 is dissolved in acetic acid and heated at 85 degrees Celsius for two hours, chemically producing Heroin #2 in solution, to which sodium carbonate is added to produce heroin base. This is still not real heroin. To produce Heroin #3, or smoking heroin, #2 is mixed with hydrochloric acid, dried and crushed into what generally looks like brown sugar, and is thusly so called. At this point, the heroin is 20-30% pure. To make Heroin #4, or injectable heroin, both ether and hydrochloric acid are added to #2, filtered and dried. This 80-90% heroin can then be injected.
Thus, if one had that early vision of only smoking opium in hazy oblivion, well, the true danger is injecting the refined product into the blood stream. Where total cultivation dropped from 275,000 hectares in 1991 to 150,000 today, production is bullish and growing. Looks like we did not decimate the Taliban, for they are largely responsible for this recovery.
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Opium contains two alkaloids, phenanthrenes (morphine, codeine, C17 H19 NO3) and benzylisoquinolines. First exploited as a narcotic in Sumerian and European cultures 6,000 years ago, Muslims spread the use to India, then on to China. Clearly, throughout time, ancient priests and warriors found ways to utilize this powder. Homer described such a combatant, and so did the founder of medicine, Hippocrates. Laudanum, opium in ethanol, was widely prescribed into the 19th century.
For centuries in China, even a small village without a rice shop could have an opium distributor. British merchants in the early 1800’s smuggled this drug as trade for tea, leading to the Opium Wars, through which the U.K. gained control of Hong Kong.
Chinese emigrants employed for the transcontinental railroad brought this habit to the U.S. Opium was smoked, but derivatives were used in various tonics. President Theodore Roosevelt convened an international conference in 1902, spearheading the control of this opiate at a time when 27% of the adult male population of China was addicted. Yet, if it is true that 6,630 metric tons were produced in 2006, and the price on the streets is $16,000 per kilogram, then the value that year was in excess of $100 billion, with 150 times more going to drug traffickers than growers. And that’s only opium, which the general populace thought only was smoked by old Chinese men in dark dens. Further, this opium, losing 90% the weight, can be processed into heroin, which has a value of about $300,000/kg. We are now up to $200 billion/year if the entire crop were converted to heroin.
With apologies to Teddy, the media reports that international drug control as a multilateral program is older than the United Nations, even older than the League of Nations, beginning in 1912 to deal with opium. This has been a success story, for then, the production of opium was 30,000 metric tons. Today, it has dropped below 10,000 metric tons, so with four times more people today, the reduction of use per capita is down more than 90%. But was it this international organization, or just, plain, China, and how it governs? A century ago, with one third the present population, there were 25 million opium users. Today, there are 8.5 million drug addicts with a much larger population. The incidence is still high, but certainly better.
Regarding supply, in 2006, Afghanistan produced 92% of all the opium (obtained by drying the milky juice of the unripe seed pods of poppy), with Columbia, Mexico, Peru and the Golden Triangle (Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Viet Nam) supplying the rest. Heroin (which is diacetylmorphine, C12H23NO5, is converted by your liver to morphine) is synthesized from opium. In 2007, the Afghanistan supply went up 34%, but their world share only increased by 1%, meaning the rest of these countries also had in total a similar increase.
To make heroin, the raw opium is first boiled in water. Slaked lime (calcium hydroxide—which is made by mixing lime, or calcium oxide, in water) is then added to form a solution, which is filtered to remove any impurities. Ammonia is used to precipitate the morphine, which is filtered out as white chunks of morphine base, known as Heroin Number 1. But this is not yet real heroin. Heroin #1 is dissolved in acetic acid and heated at 85 degrees Celsius for two hours, chemically producing Heroin #2 in solution, to which sodium carbonate is added to produce heroin base. This is still not real heroin. To produce Heroin #3, or smoking heroin, #2 is mixed with hydrochloric acid, dried and crushed into what generally looks like brown sugar, and is thusly so called. At this point, the heroin is 20-30% pure. To make Heroin #4, or injectable heroin, both ether and hydrochloric acid are added to #2, filtered and dried. This 80-90% heroin can then be injected.
Thus, if one had that early vision of only smoking opium in hazy oblivion, well, the true danger is injecting the refined product into the blood stream. Where total cultivation dropped from 275,000 hectares in 1991 to 150,000 today, production is bullish and growing. Looks like we did not decimate the Taliban, for they are largely responsible for this recovery.
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The Dow Jones Industrials leaped at the opening bell and settled plus 117 at 9108. Hong Kong rebounded 13% and Japan 10% today. European markets mostly increased a couple of percentage points. Crude oil slipped a couple of bucks to $65.21/barrel. If you follow inventory and supplies, it appears as if government and private reports manage to somehow surprise buyers with continuing regularity. Anyway, the latest Energy Information Administration report showed higher inventories for what is projected to be a mild winter. Gold dropped $27/toz to $736/toz.
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No major storms over the ocean around the world.
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