NS Talibanseizure of Afghanistan Experts fear the deadly super-strength heroin could flood British and European roads.
The Islamic terrorist group is heavily dependent on the war-torn country’s billion-pound opium trade.
The country grew production last year, which already accounts for two-thirds of the world’s opium supply.
Ian Hamilton, a drug addiction researcher at the University of York, claimed it was a problem ‘getting down the road’.
A UN report showed that Afghanistan produced 37 percent more opium last year. The country cultivated opium from 224,000 hectares of poppy fields – an area 50 percent larger than the whole of Greater London
Heroin is made from opium that is extracted from the pods of some poppy plants, which is converted to morphine and then to heroin. (Pictured: An Afghan man working in an opium field in Nangarhar, eastern Afghanistan in April 2016)
The Balkan route (red dotted line) is the main route into Europe for smuggling opium from Afghanistan, where most of the heroin produced in the country ends up. It is commonly smuggled through Iran, Turkey and the Balkans. Meanwhile, most of the opium taken in the Americas arrived from Mexico and Colombia.
He told MailOnline: ‘Opium production has increased significantly over the past year – and this is no coincidence.
‘There has been minimal official control over production and distribution. The increase in the yield of opium is going to find its way into the western markets.
‘And the worrying thing about it is that if the yield goes up, you end up with stronger, more potent heroin because there’s less need to dilute it.’
Heroin – commonly sold as a brown powder – is produced from morphine, which is extracted from the pods of the poppy poppy plant.
The charity says that super-strength heroin is more likely to cause addiction.
New heroin users may think they are taking a safe dosage that has been recommended to them, when it is actually much stronger.
And regular users will keep taking the same amount without knowing its potentially lethal strength.
‘It’s like drinking a regular pint and then suddenly turning to spirits’, said Mr Hamilton.
According to the United Nations, Afghanistan accounts for about two-thirds of all opium produced worldwide.
A UN report published in May claimed that the amount of opium produced in Afghanistan had increased by 37 percent last year.
The country cultivated opium from 224,000 hectares of poppy fields – 50 percent larger than the entire area of Greater London.
Europe is the main destination of heroin produced in Afghanistan. It is commonly smuggled through Turkey and the Balkans.
Meanwhile, most of the opium taken into the US was smuggled from Mexico and Colombia.
Crystal meth is also becoming a problem in the country, with the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction warning that it could become an industry as big as heroin in the country.
Experts have pinned the increased production and supply of crystal meth to drug smugglers, who find ephedra, the plant used to make ephedrine, growing wild in the country’s mountains, is a major component of the drug. .
Health chiefs recently issued warnings about heroin overdose after more than a dozen deaths.
In the past fortnight, at least 46 poisons have been found in South London, the South East, the South East and the East of England.
Public Health England said an immediate investigation was ongoing with the police.
And it said there are early signs that the overdose may have been caused by batches of heroin mixed with a potent and dangerous synthetic opioid.
Officials did not say what the compound drug might have been – but experts suggested it could be fentanyl or a spice.
Fentanyl, a strong opioid pain reliever designed to treat severe pain, is 50 times more potent than heroin and has been linked to thousands of deaths in the US.
It comes as drug deaths in the UK stood at 4,561 in England and Wales in 2020, the highest level since 1993.
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