The chemicals required for methamphetamine production, known as precursors, are relatively freely available and many can be purchased over the counter. Obviously, industrial scale manufacturing processes require industrial amounts of precursors. They are harder to obtain, and so both the U.S. and Canada have witnessed the growth in “smurfing” techniques—the laborious but effective process of purchasing legally available amounts of the precursors from pharmacies all over the country.
The prevalence of precursors, the availability of highly qualified chemists, and the high level of existing drug production (chiefly marijuana) in provinces like B.C. means that Canada is steadily transforming from being primarily a consumer country into a producer nation. There is evidence, the World Drug Report continues, that “Canada-based Asian organized crime groups and outlaw motorcycle gangs have significantly increased the amount of methamphetamine they manufacture and export for the U.S. market, but also for Oceania and East and Southeast Asia.”
Japan, Korea and parts of Southeast Asia are among the biggest consumers of synthetic drugs. If Canada becomes a pivotal manufacturer for this area as well as for consumers at home and in the U.S., then this is a game changer. The trend will simply overwhelm Canadian law enforcement, already stretched beyond capacity with the marijuana industry and the cocaine transit trade.
A similar phenomenon is now being detected in Europe. In Britain, police have been confronted with a significant growth in home-grown marijuana production (largely under the control of Vietnamese gangs). But amphetamine and ecstasy laboratories are also springing up there as well as in Holland and throughout eastern Europe. The European Union is the largest drug market in the world—once production processes become entrenched there, the narcotics can move to the customers across the Union without let or hindrance.
It will be a long time before there is a critical drop in cocaine and heroin consumption, but advances in narcotics production will eventually condemn them to the loneliness of a niche market. Instead, Canada, the U.S., Australia and Europe are set to become the industrial narcotics producers of the 21st century. At least this offers some hope for the current epicentres of organic drug production like Colombia and Afghanistan. It was Sandra Calvani, a committed drug warrior, who made the extremely perceptive observation:
“Cocaine has no future. Wherever amphetamines and synthetic drugs have arrived on the market, then there is always a big boom and it replaces everything: cocaine, heroin, the lot. It is a pill that looks like an aspirin and is much more user-friendly; it works fast and doesn’t involved the paraphernalia of injecting or sniffing, a much better kind of drug—more dangerous but it works. So the future is in the new drugs. The market will change and determine this. They don’t need the narco-traffickers. The future will be completely different.”
And that future may be just enough to persuade the Western world that the war on drugs needs a rethink.
Misha Glenny is the author of the bestselling McMafia: Journey through the Global Criminal Underworld, published by Anansi.
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