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0:48

Hello, I'm Tom Sutcliffe and this is Start

0:50

the Week from BBC Radio 4. I hope

0:52

you enjoy the programme. If

0:55

you were to draw up a list of plants that

0:57

have had a consequential effect on human history, then

1:00

Papava Somniferum would have

1:02

to be very high on that list. You can't

1:04

really build with it, eat it or wear it.

1:07

Papava Somniferum is the opium poppy,

1:10

known as a cure for pain and

1:12

illness from neolithic times, but

1:14

also a plant which has at times played a

1:16

devastating part in human history. With

1:19

us in the studio today to

1:21

talk about opioid crises, past and

1:23

present, the writer Amitav Ghosh, whose

1:25

research for his IBIS trilogy of

1:27

novels led him deep into the

1:29

story of opium in India and

1:31

China, and Richard Britton, who's been

1:33

studying the opium trade in Afghanistan

1:35

for over 20 years and can

1:38

see from space how effective attempts

1:40

to control it have been. And

1:42

joining us on a line from Salford,

1:45

Professor Fiona Misham of Liverpool University, a

1:48

criminologist who studies the impact of

1:50

opiates on their users and works

1:52

on ways to minimise the harm

1:54

illegal and unregulated drugs can cause.

1:58

Fiona Misham, before we talk about harm, this

2:01

has been a prodigiously useful drug through

2:03

history, hasn't it? It has a very,

2:06

very long history as a medicine. Yes,

2:09

absolutely. Since

2:11

the dawn of time, people have been

2:14

taking plant-based medicines, whether that's to maximise

2:16

pleasure, stimulate the creative or

2:18

spiritual energies, or in this case to

2:21

minimise the chain. The

2:23

opiates are very, very effective, analgesics, and

2:25

as you've seen, you have thousands of

2:27

yards on prescription land

2:29

over the counter, and for all sorts of purposes.

2:32

So, post-operative, palliative care,

2:34

childbirth, and historically

2:36

for gastrointestinal problems to slow

2:39

down and soothe the digestive

2:41

tract, and also as an effective cost

2:43

to the present. So, you used to be able to

2:46

buy heroin lozenges, Clodine

2:48

Linktas, and also now respiratory

2:50

medicine will prescribe slow-release morphine.

2:53

So, there's a very long

2:55

history of its use. In

2:57

the UK, I think one of the interesting

2:59

things in Victorian times is that you

3:02

could get opiate tinctures over the

3:04

counter of any strength, any amount,

3:06

and midwives even used to make up

3:08

opiate tinctures for babies when they were

3:10

born. We know that there

3:12

were cases of abuse

3:15

historically, but was there a very

3:18

strong link between the medicinal use

3:20

and abuse and addiction? Was

3:22

that there from the beginning as well? In

3:26

the early days, and before regulation in

3:28

1868, it was

3:30

predominantly seen to be used for self-medication,

3:32

really. Most people didn't have access to

3:35

GPs in the way that we do now in the

3:37

UK, and people could buy these tinctures from corner

3:39

shops totally unregulated. What

3:42

would happen, of course, is that once people might have taken them

3:44

for a cough, or for some

3:46

digestive problems, is that they would be able

3:48

to continue taking them because they had access

3:51

to them. And because they

3:53

liked the effect beyond

3:55

the coughs at present? Yeah, I

3:58

think that combination of the pain relief, And

4:01

for people who might have all sorts of social

4:03

economic as well as physical problems, there

4:05

will be a numbing effect. And I think that's

4:07

the added appeal, at least, that will be taking

4:10

away the problems that people might have in their

4:12

everyday lives. Yeah, well, I think in Lancashire mill

4:14

towns, babies used to sometimes be left with a

4:17

dummy soaked in Lordnum, which is

4:19

horribly effective. Richard Britten, it

4:21

doesn't go massively a long

4:24

way back in Afghanistan's history, does it? I mean,

4:26

it's not there, as it were, from ancient times.

4:30

No, no. And in fact, the

4:33

view is that it's come across into

4:35

Afghanistan from Pakistan and

4:37

has been prevalent there for the last 30 years. But

4:40

it doesn't have that long history.

4:42

But equally, as Fiona's been talking there about

4:45

the social uses, the medicinal uses,

4:47

is prevalent

4:49

across the country for a range of

4:52

household symptoms that Fiona's just described. And

4:55

those were, and were they, was

4:57

it used for that, as it was, sort

5:00

of in prehistory, as it were before the

5:02

Empire got there, before the British got there?

5:05

Is there any evidence of that? I'm not sure. I

5:08

haven't seen it. I was on

5:13

a gosh, you've talked in your book about

5:16

the sense of opium as an agent. It

5:18

gets almost spooky at times. You talk of

5:20

it as a being. And you

5:23

say this in thinking about the opium

5:25

poppies role in history, it is hard

5:27

to ignore the feeling of an intelligence

5:29

at work. What the opium

5:31

poppy does is clearly not random. Now,

5:34

that sounds very strange way to think of a

5:36

plan to having sentience and intelligence. Why

5:39

do you write about it in that way? Well,

5:43

you know, I think I've become very interested

5:45

in non-human sentience, you

5:48

know, and it's very

5:50

clear that many kinds of other

5:52

beings have some sorts of

5:54

properties of sentience. I mean, we know the

5:56

trees in a forest Communicate with

5:58

each other, speak with each other. The each other

6:00

and are really create out and sometimes

6:03

create their own histories with opium. you

6:05

know this is something that occurs too.

6:07

Many people who have been are looking

6:09

of the history of opium over the

6:11

long run because with him seems to

6:13

be able to outwit or even all

6:15

human attempts to control it. you know

6:17

And it's done so for a very

6:19

long time and it is the problem.

6:22

They're not with us rather than with

6:24

the opium poppies, not cleverness of the

6:26

opium poppy. it's are. Susceptibility

6:28

to it's chemicals. Yes, it's like

6:31

ugh are. it's like a federal

6:33

opportunistic pathogen. You know? I mean

6:35

when the conditions are right it

6:37

up. opium can just sort of

6:40

fab, sluggish and take and of

6:42

you're right. Again, I think at

6:44

the A you noticed the father

6:46

of opium is that it bonds

6:49

very, very strongly with certain human

6:51

propensities into this greed, for example.

6:53

But also been in opium is

6:55

the incredibly powerful than being able

6:57

to as. Which pain even Now

7:00

Half of you know so many

7:02

of the anesthetics that that a

7:04

youth are actually derivative before him

7:06

at your book. Make an Ashes

7:08

is about a gym. It has

7:10

a puppy on the cover, but

7:12

you start with another hugely influential

7:14

plans am. Camelia, Sinensis.

7:16

Yes, what part does t plane

7:18

store in one you start? there

7:21

will be played a vital role

7:23

in sort of the explosion of

7:25

opium that happened under the British

7:27

Empire and the dots and by

7:29

a because or t in the

7:31

said sir are in the eighteenth

7:34

century was incredibly important. Or for

7:36

British revenues are the British stacks,

7:38

these dinner companies d r in

7:40

bullets and or that they'd fall

7:42

almost stop everything that the government

7:44

did a mean. It was the

7:46

most It it it It was a

7:49

very very lucrative source of income seller

7:51

appetite Cities. yeah I'm was a huge

7:53

revenue provider but then why why the

7:55

move to a Pm? The connection that

7:57

well. The bus would buy all that the

7:59

and. China, but they had to pay

8:01

for the tea with silver. The Chinese wouldn't

8:04

accept anything else and Britain had nothing to

8:06

sell to the Chinese. So

8:08

around about 1760, after the British took

8:12

over a large swathe of Eastern India,

8:15

they just decided that the

8:19

opium sort of farming that happened there,

8:21

which was mainly for medicinal purposes, they

8:24

decided to start expanding the

8:26

export of opium to China.

8:29

And it succeeded incredibly well. And

8:31

were they initially exporting it

8:34

as a medicine for

8:36

medical purposes, or did they already know that

8:39

that was, as it were, you

8:41

have a consumer base that is not going to

8:43

be able to say no to this product? They

8:45

did know that because actually they were very closely

8:48

connected with the Dutch, and

8:50

the Dutch had already sort of pioneered the

8:52

growth of opium in Southeast Asia. They'd

8:54

used opium really to create monopolies

8:57

on various forms of trade. And

8:59

they bought all their opium actually from Eastern

9:01

India. So then the British

9:03

and the Dutch, they were very closely

9:05

linked. And they

9:08

clearly knew that they

9:11

could grow the market in China if they

9:13

started selling opium there. And it

9:15

worked because really the thing about opium is that

9:18

it doesn't work like any other

9:20

commodity. It's not demand that fuels

9:22

the growth of the opium trade,

9:24

but rather it's the supply. Once

9:26

supply becomes easily available, the demand

9:29

for it grows exponentially. That's what's happened

9:31

in America. Yes, that's some, Fiona

9:34

Meesham, I want to bring you in because you're looking

9:36

at, as it were, these drugs

9:39

now. Is that the experience now

9:41

that supply drives demand, or is

9:43

it the other way around? I

9:45

thought this was a really interesting aspect of your book

9:48

and surprising as well. And in my research, we've tended

9:50

to turn it the other way around and

9:52

look at the extent to which the

9:54

demand drives supply. And if there are

9:56

disruptions in the supply chain, how people

9:58

might then displace their drug use

10:00

from one drug to another and perhaps more

10:03

recently seeing that in relation to the

10:05

different synthesis which have filled the gap in

10:07

relation to some vacuum

10:10

in the established street drugs and I think

10:12

Richard has written about this as well in relation

10:14

to heroin and what happens when

10:16

the Taliban comes down on prop cultivation

10:18

there. I suppose there is a

10:20

point that once you've created the demand even if

10:23

you've created it in the

10:25

mid 18th century that that demand

10:27

will remain steady and will will

10:29

kind of evolve and

10:31

change and move to different

10:33

drugs but it'll still be there. The

10:37

East India Company takes over the opium

10:39

trade in 1772 and

10:41

so there is an existing trade

10:44

but they rationalise it and ramp it

10:47

up. How do they operate that? Well

10:50

they start exporting, they start sending

10:52

more and more opium into China,

10:54

they create something called the opium

10:57

department which completely

11:00

controls the cultivation of

11:02

poppies which actually these poor peasants in

11:04

the Gangetic

11:07

Lane, they produce below

11:10

cost because they're literally

11:12

coerced into producing the drug. So

11:14

they don't have a choice about whether

11:16

they grow poppies or not? They don't

11:19

really, effectively they don't because credit

11:21

is forced upon them and they have these

11:23

various other mechanisms of coercion. So

11:26

they produce this drug and they you

11:29

know below cost and then you know

11:32

they have to sell it to the East

11:34

India Company because it's a monopsony and

11:37

the East India Company then takes it and you

11:39

know exports it to China. Huge

11:41

markups enormous at

11:44

enormous profit but what also happens in

11:46

this period is that parts of India

11:48

which are not under effective British control

11:50

also start cultivating opium on a

11:53

very large scale. This is absolutely

11:55

fascinating I think because it's left

11:57

a mark on India still today

11:59

hasn't it? difference between the east of

12:01

the country and the west of the country.

12:03

So the east of the country is the

12:05

Gangetic Plain where the opium department controls everything,

12:08

purchasing what you grow and so on. What's happening

12:10

in the west? In the west

12:12

it's completely different because various

12:15

Indian principalities control those

12:17

regions and this

12:20

allows Indian merchants to get

12:22

into the opium trade and

12:24

create profits for

12:27

themselves. Even the peasantry that

12:29

are growing the opium do much, much

12:31

better because So

12:34

why is it that the British, since they are able to control it

12:36

in Bihar and in the

12:38

east, why isn't that they can't control it in …

12:41

They tried very hard. In fact, the

12:43

Duke of Wellington's brother was one of

12:46

the opium agents in western India and

12:48

they tried very hard. But actually what

12:50

happened then is that two

12:52

or three Maratha principalities were

12:55

actually very, very strong, very effective. They

12:57

had armies and so on. So

13:00

the British couldn't actually force them to do

13:02

anything. So the military cost was going

13:04

to be too high. What did they

13:06

do instead because they didn't sort of

13:08

cut themselves out of the profit? No, not at

13:10

all. What they did in fact was very

13:12

clever. They turned Bombay

13:14

into the main opium exporting port

13:17

and they put taxes on opium

13:19

exports and this was actually a more

13:21

cost effective way for them to make

13:23

money off opium. It's

13:27

believed by some historians that in fact the

13:30

British invaded Sindh where Karachi

13:32

is in

13:34

order to stop Karachi exporting opium

13:36

because Karachi was becoming a major

13:38

competitor. You quote the French historian

13:41

Claude Markovits, before becoming the Manchester

13:43

of India, Bombay became its medellin.

13:46

This was absolutely the case, yes. What

13:51

mark does that leave on India now? Very

13:54

profound mark because from

13:56

Bombay many merchants, especially

13:58

Parsi merchants, Travel

14:00

to China and up you know their

14:02

they met American merchants they met or

14:04

British much and said they came to

14:06

learn about how are you know how

14:09

the finances of the world were conducted.

14:11

They came to learn about credit mechanisms,

14:13

They discovered what were a major sort

14:15

of industries developing under the industrial revolution

14:17

and they became the pioneers of Indian

14:20

industry. You know in every field and

14:22

so what is the sink and stay

14:24

during in response to this arrival of

14:26

a human and what is it that

14:28

least the first a few more in

14:31

a hint as he nine well that

14:33

seeing have outlawed opium going back to

14:35

Seventeen Twenty Nine and not in the

14:37

later in the eighteenth century. Dave reiterated

14:39

these bands. but the business invented this

14:42

very clever system of smuggling opium or

14:44

into China so it was always an

14:46

illicit trade. but what they would do

14:48

with that they would bring the opium

14:50

on on. You know up to

14:53

the borders of Santa and then they would say

14:55

lifted up. said it to chinese. Wholesalers

14:58

enough but the Chinese are are

15:00

at this point tried very hard

15:02

from the eighteenth. rent is on

15:05

the to suppress the opium fade

15:07

and finally are in eighteen thirty

15:09

nine. The thing I'm percent or

15:11

lindsey's you who was of aden

15:14

on remarkable man completely incorruptible mandarin

15:16

in the best Chinese tradition and

15:18

he went to Gwangju and he

15:21

then made a concerted. Attempt to

15:23

suppress the opium trade or he

15:25

locked the foreign much much sense

15:27

into the foreign enclave and gone

15:29

to form of of a month

15:31

or so and he made them

15:33

surrender all their opium and the

15:35

British seated this as the castles

15:37

belly and they then launch this

15:39

attack upon China in effectively to

15:41

force China China to keep. it's

15:43

markets are open to opium and

15:46

eventually they got our After the

15:48

second Opium War are they managed

15:50

to a force China to. legalize

15:52

of him and to pay huge

15:54

mats and compensation for the destroyed

15:57

opium huge amounts huge amounts are

15:59

and I mean, at every step.

16:03

They gathered their army outside Guangzhou

16:06

and they were about to raise

16:08

Guangzhou. And again,

16:10

they extracted a huge, what

16:13

they call reparations. So

16:15

at every stage, they were forcing the Chinese to

16:18

give them huge amounts of money. I

16:20

mean, it's an appalling story, really. If

16:22

anyone exempts from the corruption that accompanies

16:24

this trade, I mean, the Dutch and

16:26

the British started, but then Indian traders

16:28

become involved. So

16:31

nobody remains, as it were, pure. No,

16:33

not really. But, you know, this is another

16:36

thing about Rofio. Another

16:39

way in which it seems to

16:41

demonstrate some kind of sentence. You

16:44

know, it manages to undermine state structures. Wherever

16:46

it goes, it does that. I

16:48

mean, in Europe now, you have a huge

16:50

corruption problem, you know, with

16:52

the police and everything. Similarly,

16:55

in America, you know, it's really undermined

16:57

state structures everywhere, to the

16:59

point where now American senators

17:02

talk about launching a war against Mexico. Richard

17:05

Britton, I mean, this is certainly a story that we've

17:07

seen in Afghanistan, isn't it? Rampant

17:10

levels of corruption associated with

17:13

opium, not only of its

17:15

cultivation and its protection, but

17:18

rackets around its harvesting

17:20

and onward trading and processing.

17:23

I mean, we have these numerous examples

17:26

of Afghan national police

17:29

firing on Afghan national police, who

17:32

had taken money to protect opium crops from

17:35

this outside Afghan national police coming in to eradicate

17:37

it. So there's levels

17:39

and levels of corruption associated with the industry.

17:42

Yes, lead or silver was the choice,

17:44

I think, that Colombian cartels offered policemen.

17:46

You either get a bullet or you

17:48

get a bribe, and most people would

17:50

take the bribe. Well,

17:53

I think in the Afghan

17:55

experience, it doesn't follow a

17:57

cartel type model. much

18:00

decentralized, is very much the

18:02

household community-based, but even so,

18:04

there is some cohesion around

18:06

resistance to challenge

18:09

outside interference around law enforcement

18:11

or governance arrangements that limit

18:13

their decisions around whether they

18:15

plant or not. And

18:18

so, what voices

18:20

at the time are calling out the trade

18:22

as iniquitous? We look back and we we

18:25

see it as a sort of drug cartel operation,

18:27

almost. But what voices at the time were saying

18:29

this is unconscionable? Many,

18:32

many people. I mean, many people

18:35

in India, there was a huge

18:37

anti-Othean movement began around the middle

18:39

of the 19th century, and it

18:41

was in many ways a precursor

18:43

to the Indian national movement. But

18:45

there was also a huge amount, a huge anti-Othean

18:50

movement here in Britain. Many

18:52

people were involved by the

18:55

turn of the century. There were like

18:57

20, no, many members

18:59

of parliament, I think dozens of

19:01

members of parliament who were part of

19:03

the anti-Othean movement. You quote Sir Stamford

19:06

Raffles, no opponent of empire, founder of

19:08

Singapore, saying, you know, as

19:10

long as the European government overlooking every

19:12

consideration of policy and humanity shall allow

19:15

a paltry addition to their finances to

19:17

outweigh all regard to the ultimate happiness

19:19

and prosperity of the country, the misery

19:21

will continue. So it

19:24

was obvious to people. It was completely

19:26

obvious. And Stamford Raffles, for

19:29

example, I really didn't want Singapore

19:31

to have any part in the European trade, but

19:35

it was possible to establish Singapore

19:37

as a free port because

19:40

Singapore basically got half its

19:42

revenues from what's called the

19:44

opium farm. And

19:46

this was the pattern throughout Southeast Asia.

19:49

Free trade is the rationalization quite often

19:51

here, both in America and from the

19:53

British as well. You draw

19:55

parallels between the

19:58

current justifications of person, you farmer

20:02

executives about OxyContin

20:04

and the sale of OxyContin. How

20:06

far do those parallels go? I

20:09

think they go a very long way. I mean, say

20:12

with OxyContin again, I mean, what they always

20:14

said is that this

20:18

is created by demand.

20:20

But in fact, we know that

20:22

there was no opioid problem in

20:24

America before OxyContin was introduced. But

20:27

after OxyContin was introduced, within a

20:30

space of six or seven years, you have

20:32

this rampant opioid problem. Again,

20:34

one of the weird parallels is

20:37

that the British and the Dutch often,

20:39

they picked on, let's say,

20:41

very poor people, the miners,

20:43

and especially in the

20:47

Dutch East Indies, they would market

20:49

opium especially to people who underwent

20:52

a lot of bodily pain, you know, like miners and

20:54

so on. And this was the same

20:57

that happened in China, because opium

21:00

is miraculous in that way, that

21:02

it can really alleviate the

21:04

pain of hard labor and so on. So,

21:07

yep. Ever since then, we've

21:09

seen this kind of

21:11

oscillation between sort of letting the drug

21:13

trade run and then trying to control

21:15

it. How was it that China and

21:17

India seem to be able to break

21:19

the links? I mean, it was a huge problem in

21:21

China. The

21:24

Indian economy was heavily dependent

21:26

on it. How did they manage to break

21:28

the link? If you

21:30

look at what happened, I think it was

21:32

essentially the whole anti-colonial

21:35

moment, you know, that starts in

21:37

the late 19th century onwards. So,

21:40

a huge popular movement arose, and

21:43

it was an international movement, you

21:45

know, often spearheaded by China. Actually,

21:47

there was a Qing statesman who

21:50

spearheaded the movement. But again, in

21:52

India, there was a huge sort

21:54

of popular feeling about it.

21:57

It was the same in Java, for example. So,

22:01

but China is the only country

22:03

really that has historically been

22:05

able to completely defeat the problem. And

22:09

have they now? They must have a drug

22:11

problem of some kind, but it's not

22:13

as it were on the scale that it

22:16

used to be. Absolutely not. No,

22:18

I mean, apparently in China in the late

22:20

19th century, early 20th century, possibly

22:24

30% of the country was addicted to

22:26

opioids. You

22:28

say it's the only country that's managed to solve the

22:30

problem. I just want to come on to Richard Britain

22:32

because it looks as

22:34

though Afghanistan under the Taliban might be

22:36

another. It's far too early to say

22:40

you run a company called Alsis,

22:42

which is geographic information services. Can

22:46

you tell us how your company works and how

22:48

it works out what's going on on the ground

22:50

in Afghanistan? So we've

22:52

been operating for the last 20 years

22:55

in Afghanistan and in recent years globally

22:57

to use the advances in technologies

23:00

and data that give us a

23:02

profound and different insight into some

23:05

of these challenges in conflict countries

23:07

around the world. The

23:10

rapid advance in satellites

23:12

in space, these earth

23:14

observation satellites of which there's more

23:17

than a thousand taking images constantly

23:19

of the earth's surface, give

23:21

us now a current and increasing historic

23:23

archive of a vast amount of imagery

23:26

that we can now look at at

23:28

really high levels of resolution. So

23:30

if we're looking in Afghanistan, if we're looking at the

23:33

opium crop, what we're able

23:35

to do is bring a research team

23:37

together. I here represent Dr. David Mansfield,

23:40

who we've been working with as a partnership for

23:42

the last 20 years, and my

23:44

team of imagery and geospatial analysts

23:47

at Alsis. So look at all

23:49

of this data and bring it together. The

23:51

astonishing thing that you can see

23:53

from imagery is not just opium

23:55

crops as they're being cultivated through

23:58

the season, you can also see... those

24:00

crops in context. So we always want to

24:02

see, well, what other crops are being grown?

24:06

What other crops are grown

24:08

outside of that opium season? And

24:10

equally at the household level, can you see

24:12

an accumulation of assets that come with

24:14

the profits that might come from not just

24:17

opium, but the whole year round? You

24:20

can analyze it down to that fine

24:22

grain of seeing whether people have got

24:24

a new car. You can see cars,

24:27

motorbikes, solar panels, reservoir, water reservoirs, investing

24:29

in solar panels. So the

24:31

Taliban introduced the ban on poppy cultivation in

24:33

2022. Why did they do it and is

24:37

it working? So

24:39

they've never explained why, but we believe

24:41

it is driven by a theological... Some

24:44

of the rationale is theological, isn't it?

24:47

Exactly. Which is contrary to some

24:49

of the received wisdom that's out there, which

24:52

is that the Taliban as a movement was

24:55

a narcoinsurgency, which frankly has been

24:57

debunked. There were previous claims

24:59

of the Taliban receiving $400 a year to fuel

25:01

its insurgency. Our

25:05

research has shown it's actually more like $40 million

25:07

a year back in the insurgency days and

25:10

they got more money taxing illicit goods than

25:12

they did illicit. So

25:14

coming forward to present, if that were the case,

25:16

why would they then ban such

25:18

a lucrative industry? So

25:22

actually, no, our belief is that it's

25:24

more by theology. It is driven

25:26

by the fact that it's haram and

25:29

it should not be undertaken.

25:32

Haram forbidden under Islam. Exactly.

25:36

So is it working? For

25:39

the moment and in the main, yes. So

25:42

the research that we conducted on the crop

25:44

that was grown over the winter, 22 to

25:47

23, suggested

25:49

spring last year, showed a

25:51

dramatic reduction across the country with

25:54

one notable exception. But

25:56

in those reductions, there's one standout province

25:58

called Helmand in the the southwest, which

26:00

was notorious for the UK engagement in

26:03

Afghanistan. And that province

26:05

normally cultivates around half of

26:07

the country's cultivation. And last

26:09

year, they went from around 130,000

26:11

hectares to less than 1,000 hectares. That's

26:16

a huge difference. 130 to 1. The

26:19

Americans and the British wanted to control

26:22

this trade and were

26:24

unable to do it. Why were they

26:26

unable to do it and the Taliban

26:28

is? Is it a question of brutality

26:30

or local presence? Frankly, yes.

26:33

The Taliban have a means of

26:36

menace around their control

26:38

of the country, which means that they do

26:40

have some fairly sinister

26:43

means of inducing the

26:46

rural populations to do as they demand. On

26:50

the run up to planting for

26:52

this big reduction, they brought in the edict

26:55

and then they moved against other drug

26:57

industries in Afghanistan, which was seen as

26:59

a precursor for what was to come.

27:03

They communicated the messages and

27:05

farmers took the message. And even when it

27:07

had been planted, they went out and they

27:09

eradicated with some vigour in

27:12

the south-western the east. We

27:15

know that there is always somebody to fill the

27:17

gap in the supply chain. So what is filling

27:19

the gap in the if this

27:22

amount of opium poppy is

27:24

not there anymore, who is supplying

27:26

it? So there are two standouts.

27:28

The main standout within Afghanistan is a

27:31

province in the northeast called Balakshan, which

27:33

is a remote mountainous province. And

27:36

around half of the country's cultivation

27:38

was grown there last year. And

27:42

there was a move by the Taliban

27:44

government to go in and eradicate the crop there. There

27:47

was some violence, there were some deaths and they backed

27:49

off and they let them harvest

27:51

what was grown. But that was a big

27:53

increase from the previous year. The

27:57

other area of expansion is Pakistan. And

28:00

so we have this terminology

28:02

about balloon effects. So if you squeeze

28:04

cultivation here, it pops up there. And

28:06

that's what happened in Pakistan being

28:09

squeezed. It arrives in Afghanistan. You get

28:11

this big expansion. Now you've got this

28:13

contraction. You've got this opportunistic

28:15

moment in Khayyabar, Paktoumwa in Pakistan, where

28:17

over the last couple of years,

28:19

we've seen a steady increase in return

28:22

to poppy cultivation in a

28:24

really challenging area of

28:26

increased lawlessness and violence

28:29

and reduced central Pakistan

28:31

control and governance. And so

28:33

a great opportunity for farmers

28:36

there who are looking across the border

28:38

at reductions, seeing a dramatic

28:40

increase in prices that are five

28:42

to 10 times what they normally

28:45

would be a year ago to say

28:47

that there's a huge opportunity here

28:50

to profit maximize. That is the

28:52

permanent mechanism, isn't it? That control

28:54

increases price, which increases incentive. You're

28:57

in a sort of feedback loop. Are

29:00

the farmers taking the loss here? And

29:03

obviously, the Taliban to a degree is taking

29:05

the loss. But what about the ordinary farmer?

29:07

And that loss is profoundly uneven.

29:10

So if you're a farmer in Afghanistan, you own

29:13

your own land, then

29:15

you've got the opportunity to return to that

29:17

land, grow something else, maybe

29:19

get something in in the second season, maybe

29:22

get by. But if

29:24

you are a tenant farmer, for instance,

29:27

and you're renting that land, or

29:29

if you're a sharecropper, you have an arrangement to

29:31

take part of the crop that you're then in

29:35

a share dealing with, your opportunities

29:37

now with the absence of poppy to make

29:39

any money from the area of agriculture you've

29:41

got available to you, if you're, let's say,

29:43

shifting to wheat, means you're not going to

29:45

make any money whatsoever. So

29:48

the coping strategies are very different and

29:50

varied. I think in the short

29:52

term as well, what is

29:54

less unknown are the

29:56

amount of inventories of opium that

29:59

are held at the household level. level. There

30:02

are stories of many, many households in

30:04

the South West where farmers are actually

30:06

very happy with the ban because they've

30:09

got large amounts of opium under their

30:11

bed. Yes, something I

30:13

learned from Amitav's book is opium gets better

30:15

if you keep it. So

30:18

non-perishable subject. It's a non-perishable subject. I mean, it

30:20

improves, doesn't it? Yes.

30:23

And so, yes, it doesn't perish. It

30:25

can last a long time. It's small

30:27

in volume. You can move quickly with

30:29

it. And I

30:32

think that we have underestimated the

30:35

yields that are produced each year. So, you

30:37

know, there are various organizations that will do

30:39

estimates and they'll produce yields and they'll come

30:41

up with some numbers on tonnage of opium

30:44

produced each year. But we think that they

30:46

are at least half wrong.

30:48

You know, there's another double that and it's sitting in

30:50

households. Just quickly, there is

30:52

another drug crop grain in Afghanistan, ephedra,

30:55

which provides ephedrine and the source materials

30:57

for crystal meth. Is that banned

30:59

as well? Yes. And

31:01

is that ban operating effectively too? Pretty

31:05

effectively. Right. They in

31:07

fact moved against methamphetamines before they moved against

31:10

opium. And they have

31:12

had a profound impact on that industry.

31:15

We took some satellite imagery of

31:17

the nodal point, the nodal bazaar

31:19

in Afghanistan called Abdul-Wadud in

31:21

November 2021. So four months after

31:24

the Taliban took over, there was

31:26

enough plant based ephedra in that bazaar

31:29

to make 220

31:31

tons of crystal meth, which

31:34

when the Australian sees 1.8 tons at 1.1 billion dollars

31:36

of value, you

31:40

can imagine what that process value around the world

31:42

would be. And the Taliban moved

31:44

against that bazaar and they've closed it down. There's been

31:46

no trading of that ever since.

31:49

So that is going to have an effect somewhere. Almost

31:51

certainly, isn't it? It's going to put

31:54

the price up sufficiently. Fiona Meesham,

31:56

I want to bring you in

31:58

here because you are studying. the

32:01

new synthetic drugs which in many cases

32:03

come in to fill the gap here.

32:05

What's the signal difference between when you

32:08

started as a researcher in this field

32:10

and where we are now in terms of

32:13

kind of availability of drugs? Well

32:16

when I started doing drugs

32:18

research we would have a list of about seven

32:20

different drugs to ask people if they tried them

32:23

and now it's impossible to have a list

32:25

that's that long. There's one new drug being

32:27

identified by the European Monitoring Centre every week

32:30

and there are over 750 that

32:32

are identified by them on their

32:34

books. So yeah the situation

32:36

has totally exploded really. We saw a few

32:38

designer drugs start to appear in the 70s

32:40

and 80s but

32:43

the whole sort of clench

32:46

of new psychoactive substances, initially

32:49

called legal hives, we really started to see them from

32:51

around about 2007-2008. And

32:55

what happened was that there seemed

32:57

to be some dissatisfaction by drug

32:59

users with the established street drugs.

33:01

So things like cocaine, heroin, MDMA,

33:04

the purity was very low and

33:07

into that vacuum some

33:09

creative chemists identified drugs

33:11

which not only simulated

33:13

the illegal drugs but

33:15

also that they were able

33:17

to sidestep the current legal controls.

33:20

So they started producing in

33:22

Chinese labs and we see that from

33:24

2008-2009 small

33:27

parcel deliveries to Europe contained pure,

33:29

100% pure synthetic drugs

33:31

which were emulating the illegal

33:34

drugs. So that

33:36

was initially, there was a flurry

33:38

of interest in the legal hives. And

33:40

is the drive essentially, is it

33:43

to create a better mousetrap or is it

33:45

to evade the law? I

33:47

think it's really, it was a combination of

33:49

those at the beginning. It was that they

33:51

were very cheap, they were high strength and

33:53

they were delivered to people's stores and

33:56

they were totally legal so there was an interest

33:58

in them because of the price. and

34:00

purity and availability. Some people who

34:02

wouldn't take illegal drugs were interested

34:05

because they were legal but that wasn't the only

34:07

driver but it was one of

34:09

them. People could buy them from high street

34:11

head shops, the sort of places that sold

34:14

cigarette papers and those sorts of things. So

34:17

there was a real explosion of

34:19

these synthetics, synthetic cathinones, synthetic cannabinoids

34:21

like spice and also the synthetic

34:23

opiates or opioids as we call

34:26

them. And is the

34:28

history of this a constant

34:30

history of increasing strength and

34:33

increasing kind of rapidity of action? I mean

34:35

that seems to be a story over history that

34:37

you start with poppy seed tea and you end

34:39

up with you know heroin

34:42

or fentanyl. Is the same thing happening

34:44

with the designers drugs that they're constantly

34:46

getting stronger? Not

34:48

necessarily stronger but one of the concerns is

34:50

that they've become more harmful so probably the

34:53

most obvious synthetics to identify

34:55

were initially manufactured but as each country

34:57

bans that so the manufacturing has moved

35:00

to a different substance, a chemical cousin

35:02

which might be less obvious and more

35:04

harmful. So we see that by the

35:07

second, third and fourth generation of synthetic

35:09

cannabinoids for example that they are becoming

35:11

much more potent but also much more

35:13

problematic from a health perspective. Yes nobody's

35:16

doing kind of human health

35:18

tests on these drugs before they release them

35:20

into the market. Yeah no actually and that's

35:22

really interesting because as Amitabh has described we've

35:24

got thousands of years of history on the effects of

35:27

opium on the human body but some of these

35:29

are so new we have no information whatsoever

35:32

on them. Amitabh writes about

35:34

the Boston clipper at one point as

35:36

a technology that evolves

35:38

to help make the

35:40

opium trade more efficient, more profitable.

35:43

What technology is central to this

35:45

drugs trade? I mean is the

35:47

internet essential to it? I

35:49

think that's definitely been a key factor in terms

35:51

of the ability to get the substances

35:54

across national boundaries for people to be

35:56

able to order them and

35:58

when they were legal to be ordered them openly on. the internet

36:00

and then once different countries come down and

36:02

we have increasing controls, some of

36:04

those then move to the dark

36:06

web and to crypto markets. So

36:09

there's definitely been that element of the combination of

36:12

new technologies and communication technologies

36:15

allowing people to buy these drugs. And

36:17

also I think with smartphones and with

36:19

social media platforms, we see that for

36:21

the end user as well it becomes

36:23

much easier to quickly identify and obtain

36:26

the substance. And are they

36:28

arriving raw? I mean, it's a similar story

36:30

to opium that it's grown in one, you

36:32

know, as it were, the chemical is made

36:34

in one place, that it's refined in another

36:36

place and then a further refinement takes place

36:39

somewhere else. Or are these

36:41

drugs being imported in finished state?

36:44

Initially, this is simply

36:47

chemicals, different chemicals were

36:49

being produced in Chinese labs and were being sent

36:51

by small parcel across Europe

36:53

and to the UK. What

36:55

we've seen more recently is

36:57

as controls have increased and

37:00

many of these substances now are illegal

37:03

to trade and under the

37:05

Psychractic Sussences Act of 2016 is

37:07

we have a situation where we're seeing them

37:09

more to be contaminating other markets and that's

37:11

where the real concern is. So people are

37:14

buying what they think hope and presume is

37:16

heroin but they're finding these synthetic opioids in

37:18

them which can be a hundred times stronger.

37:20

So there's a very, very serious risk

37:22

of overdose and that is

37:25

really a public health crisis in the UK over the past

37:27

year. I think you've said

37:29

as well that MDMA, ecstasy is sometimes kind

37:31

of, as it were, spiked with these new

37:33

design drugs. Why do they do it? Does

37:36

that increase the profit? I

37:39

think a couple of reasons. I think

37:41

one of them is that it can

37:43

increase the profit because they're much more

37:45

potent. But I think when you see

37:47

synthetic opioids in stimulant markets, as we've

37:49

seen, that that might well be cross-contamination

37:51

of different supplies or mistakes further at

37:53

the supply chain as well because not

37:55

all dealers will have the technologies to

37:57

identify what it is they're selling. So

38:01

you set up something called The Loop. Can you tell

38:03

us about that and why you set it up and

38:05

what it is? Yes. So I

38:07

set up The Loop, which is a harm

38:09

reduction charity, which introduced drug checking in

38:11

the UK, because I felt

38:13

that there was an opportunity really to

38:15

combine that rapid chemical analysis using these

38:18

new technologies with health

38:20

care consultations direct to the public so that

38:22

people could find out what was in circulation,

38:25

could get advice in relation to that.

38:27

So it's something which has happened across Europe

38:29

for 40 years or more, but wasn't

38:31

happening in the UK. And so along

38:33

with support from police and public health and also

38:35

now a home office licence, we've been able to

38:37

introduce that. You have support from

38:39

the police and you have a home office

38:42

licence. You must have had some opposition from

38:44

people saying what you're

38:46

doing is making an illegal act easier

38:48

to commit. Did you? How

38:50

did you answer that? We

38:53

didn't have very many people say that,

38:55

but the answer in relation to the journalists

38:57

who asked me that is

38:59

that this is a pragmatic response

39:01

to the fact that people are

39:03

already taking drugs and

39:05

to reduce the harm in relation to that.

39:08

And if we can reduce the harm from

39:10

drugs, it reduces hospital admissions, drug related deaths.

39:12

And currently we have the highest drug related

39:15

death rate on record and in

39:17

Europe with nearly 5000 people dying

39:19

every year from drugs. So it

39:21

reduces that burden on communities and reduces

39:23

the burden on the NHS as well. And

39:25

what's your experience about how users react to

39:27

the information they get from that drug testing?

39:30

You don't return a drug. So if somebody

39:32

brings a pill to you, you don't give

39:34

it back to them. But they presumably have

39:37

others, you know, that's why they bought it

39:39

to be tested. Have

39:41

you done follow up research on whether they

39:43

then sort of abandon those drugs or take

39:45

them in a different way? Yes,

39:47

for me as an academic, that's what I'm

39:49

particularly interested in, is evaluating the service. And

39:51

what we found is that if what people

39:54

buy isn't what they expected, they'd be

39:56

missold something, then two thirds go on

39:58

to throw it away. that's

40:00

going to reduce the risk of poisoning. But if

40:02

it is what they expected, and we can talk

40:04

to them about issues around dosage because one of

40:06

the concerns with illegal drugs is they just don't

40:08

know the strength of what they're taking. And we

40:10

found that half of people whose substance matched

40:13

purchasing intent would

40:15

take a lower dose. And so that's

40:17

going to reduce the risk of overdose. It's

40:19

interesting that there is sort of even within

40:22

cases of addiction, a sort of set of rational judgments

40:25

about how you do that. Amitabh,

40:27

I just want to come back to

40:30

you. When the opium trade stopped, was

40:32

there, as it were, you were saying

40:34

almost a third of people addicted, what

40:37

happened to those addicts? Was it a

40:39

case of national cold turkey? Effectively,

40:41

yes. I mean, that

40:44

was the case in China. It was the

40:46

case in in Java, where they had very

40:48

high rates of addiction for a long time.

40:51

It was also the case in India. I mean, you know, I

40:54

don't know that must have had knock on

40:56

effect historically, you can't you can't go through

40:58

that process without it profoundly affecting your society,

41:00

I would have thought. Yes,

41:03

I personally think that, you

41:05

know, the whole sort

41:08

of battle against opium had a profound

41:10

effect on Chinese state structures, you know.

41:13

Are we seeing the end of opium, do

41:15

you think, with these new designer drugs, actually,

41:17

it becomes easier and easier to replicate. And

41:19

why go through the complicated process

41:21

of growing a poppy? And I

41:24

think that's the question that many people are reflecting

41:27

on at the moment, because of course, it

41:30

will continue to be grown and cultivated,

41:32

because there is still a particular market

41:34

for that. There's

41:38

discussions at the moment about

41:40

niche drugs or bespoke drugs

41:43

that are natural of

41:45

that sort. But

41:47

I can imagine that synthetics, given

41:50

their potency and their their their cheapness

41:53

to produce, can

41:55

then just reduce this demand for

41:57

them. Fiona, what's your view on that?

42:00

Will designer drugs eventually,

42:03

as it were, knock out what

42:05

Amitav calls the grassroots psychoactive?

42:09

Yeah, I can imagine that there will be a

42:11

combination really because there's still demand for plant-based psychoactive

42:14

drugs taken for all sorts of

42:16

reasons. As I said before,

42:18

there's a lot of interest in the

42:20

psychedelics now and sort of pushed

42:22

towards those. That's a whole other

42:25

program. We have run

42:27

out of time, I'm afraid. Thank

42:29

you to all of my guests, Fiona

42:31

Meesham, Professor of Criminology at the University

42:33

of Liverpool and co-founder of The Loop,

42:35

Richard Britton, Managing Director of the mapping

42:38

service company Alsis, and the riser Amitav

42:40

Ghosh, whose new book Smoke and Ashes

42:42

Opium's Hidden Histories is out next week.

42:45

Many thanks to today's studio engineer,

42:47

Nava Miserian. Next week, Kirsty Waugh

42:49

looks beyond the influence of the

42:52

Greeks and Romans. But for now, thank

42:54

you and goodbye. Thanks

42:56

for listening to this edition of

42:58

Start the Week on BBC Radio

43:00

4, produced by Katie Hickman. And

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if you're after more conversations, art,

43:04

science, history and politics, you can

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find many, many more on the

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BBC Sounds website.