The drugs business is by far the most profitable illicit global trade, says UNODC, earning some $320 billion annually, compared with estimates of $32 billion for human trafficking and $1 billion for illegal firearms. The runaway Afghan opium trade—worth around $60 billion at street prices in consuming countries—is arguably the hardest problem. Heroin is finding new routes to the consumer, for instance through West Africa to America, and via Pakistan and Central Asia to China.
The opium market puzzles experts. They say there is now an over-supply of opiates, but the price for farmers or drug users has not changed much. UNODC suspects opium is being hoarded, and that traffickers are squeezing their vast profit margins and increasing the purity of heroin doses to maintain stability.
... Despairing of the failure of the anti-narcotics effort, formally led by Britain, which has focused on seeking alternative livelihoods for poppy farmers, the United States has been pushing for a more aggressive eradication campaign with aerial spraying. Its experts say that incentives alone will never work when farmers can earn eight or nine times more from poppy than from wheat. “You need a stick as well as a carrot,” says one senior American official.
Undersecretary of State John Bolton brushed aside a query about a carrot-and-stick approach to Iran with a subtle "I don't do carrots."
