Afghan heroin destined for the streets a direct threat to Canadians: Mounties

An Afghan farmer collects resin from poppies on a opium poppy field in Bati Kot district of Nangarhar province, east of Kabul, Afghanistan, on April 24, 2007. (AP/Rahmat Gul/file)

STEVE RENNIE

(CP) - The Mounties have warned at least two federal agencies that Afghan heroin is "increasingly" making its way to Canada and poses a direct threat to the public despite millions of dollars from Ottawa to fund the war-torn country's counter-narcotics efforts, newly released documents reveal.

"The RCMP informs us that Afghan heroin is increasingly ending up on, or is destined for Canadian streets," say Foreign Affairs and Defence Department briefings, obtained separately by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

The Afghan-produced heroin "directly threatens" Canadians, say the identically worded briefings.

Paul Nadeau, the director of the RCMP's drug branch in Ottawa, said about 60 per cent of the heroin on Canadian streets comes from Afghanistan.

"Keep in mind, though, that when we seize it, it doesn't have a stamp on it that says where it came from," he said.

Rather, it's the investigative tracing of smuggling routes that reveals the drug's country of origin.

Until a few years ago, most heroin came from an opium-producing region in Southeast Asia called the "golden triangle," a mountainous area of around 350,000 square kilometres overlapping Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand.

In recent years, organized crime groups from Southeast Asia have taken to trafficking synthetic drugs, such as ecstasy, which have more users - and more profitability - than heroin, Nadeau said.

New traffickers, who Nadeau said are often, but not always, of Indian origin, have stepped in, bringing with them new shipping methods.

The Southeast Asian traffickers were notorious for brazen heroin shipments, sometimes totalling up to 100 kilograms a haul. The new traffickers typically prefer smaller, but more frequent, shipments, Nadeau said. The strategy, it seems, is akin to throwing as much as possible against the wall to see what sticks.

"It seems to be involving the classic couriers, suitcases at the airport, smaller amounts, but no doubt, more shipments coming in," he said.

Roughly 92 per cent of the world's heroin comes from opium poppies grown in Afghanistan, according to the 2007 World Drug Report, released in June by the United Nations Office on Drugs.

Afghan heroin typically flows into Canada through two main trafficking arteries, Nadeau said: via the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and then onto India and, finally, Canada; and, from Afghanistan to western Africa, then through the United States into Canada.

The Foreign Affairs and Defence Department briefings differ on the windfall opium production and trafficking yields in Afghanistan, estimating it is equivalent to between 25 and 60 per cent of the Afghan economy.

Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Ambra Dickie says Ottawa has pledged about $57 million to fund Afghan counter-narcotics efforts, including an $18.5-million program to promote alternate livelihoods in the country's volatile Kandahar province, where Canadian troops are stationed.

The Afghan counter-narcotics programs are co-ordinated by that country's national drug control strategy. But the drug control strategy is badly flawed, said Thomas Pietschmann, a researcher who authored the UN drug report.

"It's clear: there is a disaster there. Nobody can say that it's working. It's not working," Pietschmann said from his office in Vienna, Austria.

Afghanistan's counter-narcotics minister stepped down last month after the country's opium poppy crop ballooned under his watch. Habibullah Qaderi's resignation came as western embassies and the Afghan government hold closed door meetings about how to fight the country's growing drug problem.

Pietschmann said it's "extremely logical" that there's more Afghan heroin on Canadian streets because of a spike in the central Asian nation's opium poppy production.

"It would be the most logical thing to expect, on the Canadian market, that you would see far more Afghan heroin landing on the shores of Canada," he said.

Afghanistan's swelling opium crop might lower heroin's street value in Canada, Nadeau said, adding he doubts more people will start using heroin because it's cheaper and there's more of it.

"Heroin is not what it used to be. There's a certain stigma attached to it from the user population," he said. "But it's definitely a problem in certain major centres."

The Foreign Affairs briefing concedes there's no quick fix to Afghanistan's drug quandary: "There are no simple solutions to a problem that has taken decades to develop."

At first glance, Canada doesn't seem to have a heroin problem. Less than one per cent of Canadians have used the drug at some point in their lives, according to the latest report from Health Canada and the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.

But it's difficult to gauge the real prevalence of heroin use in Canada, since most users don't partake in national surveys, said a Centre on Substance Abuse spokeswoman.

The RCMP says it seized 60 kilograms of heroin in Canada in 2003, 77 kilograms in 2004, and 83 kilograms in 2005.