 France
Heroin Users in Europe Don't See Price Drop
PARIS, Oct. 23 -- The price of Afghan heroin has dropped, but police
departments across Europe say that is unlikely to affect street prices much and has not done so to date.
British police intelligence sources said the price at the Afghanistan- Pakistan border had dropped since Sept. 11 to $200 a kilogram, or 2.2 pounds, from
$400. Europe gets the bulk of its heroin from Afghanistan while American
dealers buy from Colombia, Mexico and Southeast Asia as well.
A spokesman for the British National Criminal Intelligence Service noted that
the border price for heroin was $100 a kilo until July 2000 when the Taliban
banned the cultivation of opium poppies. The price then shot up to $400. Heroin base takes a year to 18 months to work its way through the middlemen
and laboratories where it is purified and then diluted, packaged in small doses and sold by street dealers.
Even then ...
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 India continued
Till 10 years ago, her husband was earning a living as a cycle-rickshaw
puller. But when she was arrested in April this year, Rs 49,000 in cash and three kg of smack were found in her house in Ashok Nagar.
From 1998 to July this year, 37 women involved in this trade have been arrested.
The major seizures were from Vijay Nagar, Ashok Nagar, Vishwas Nagar and
Kashmere Gate. Women are initiated in the drug trade as carriers. "A woman
carrier evokes lesser suspicion.
Also, it's not always possible to frisk her as woman police don't patrol so often," said a police official.
Women are encouraged to work in groups and even involve their kin, specifically
their teenaged daughters.
This is more common in women from nomadic tribes. One such case came to light
in Parmanand Colony, where Jahir, a woman drug dealer, was arrested along with
her woman accomplice, code-named "Cobra". In some West Delhi colonies,
women dealers have trained their girls to cater to customers.
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