Licit Opium Production: Traditional

Opium produced directly from *Papaver somniferum*. This is
cultivation done in the traditional manner of making shallow
cuts in the seed pod of the plant and then harvesting the
resulting opium which oozes out.

The AREA column is the total area of land on which *Papaver
somniferum* is planted. The area is given in hectares (Ha)
which is equal to an square which is 100 meters on a side.
It is an area roughly equlialent to three football fields
or 2.5 acres. The OPIUM column represents the opium produced
throughout the entire world. The units are given in metric
tons. A metric ton is roughly equivilent an imperial ton:
2000 pounds. The YIELD column is the amount of opium produced
per unit area. It is reported as kilograms per hectare.
This is roughly equililent to a gram per square meter.

YEAR	AREA	OPIUM	YIELD
1989	15500	500	32
1990	14000	420	30
1991	14500	405	28
1992	14500	510	35
1993	12000	370	31


Licit Opium Production: Non-Traditional

Increasingly, comercial opium production does not produce
opium at all. Instead, it produces *Papaver somniferum*
straw from which alkaloids are isolated. Obviously, there
are no figures available for opium yields for this kind of
production. However, there are numbers for morphine yields
and these allow us to work backwards to determine
equililent opium yields so that we can compare this kind
cultivation with the traditional.

Equivilent opium production can be determined for *Papaver
somniferum* by making three assumptions. First, the number
of kilogram of straw yield per hectare harvested is 600;
we will call this variable Y. Second, straw yields 0.2%
of its weight in morphine; this is variable M. Third, opium
is 12% morphine; this is variable P. We can thus convert
the straw areas to opium production:

AREA * (Y kg/Ha) * (M kg/kg) / (P kg/kg)

On the basis of this, the equivilent opium production in kg
is equal to the area planted in hectars times ten.

YEAR	AREA	OPIUM	YIELD	
1989	40500	405	10
1990	32000	320	10
1991	47000	405	10
1992	39000	390	10
1993	24000	405	10

Illicit Opium Production

Virtually all illicit opium is produced directly from
*Papaver somniferum*. There are two things worth
noting in the table below. The first is that the amount
of land used for illicit opium production is five times
that used for all licit production combined. This is
roughly equilivent to the the contrast of licit and
illicit opium on the world market.

The second noteworthy element of this table is the opium
yield which is half that for licit production. It is most
likely the result of the fact that illicit opium is produced
on a large number of small farms whereas licit opium is
produced on large commercial farms which have been optimized.
It is also probably due to the limited availability for the
small illicit farms of fertilizer and other farming production
tools.

YEAR	AREA	OPIUM	YIELD
1989	225,000	3650	16
1990	210,000	3200	15
1991	225,000	3520	15
1992	230,000	3550	15
1993	250,000	3850	15

Total Opium Production

It is widely accepted that drug use is a natural human
behavior. But modern governments try to eliminate this
behavior when it comes to drugs that they have decided
they don't like. The table below shows that, as important
as opium is as a medical agent, it is far more imporant
as a recreational agent. Five times as much opium is used
illegally (for recreational purposes) as legally (for
medical purposes). It is certainly true that the laws
probably limit the amount of opium used medically, but
this is also true of the opium used recreationally. This
division (five to one), is probably about what we would
see without government involvement.

The PART column represents the percentage of all opium
that is produced legally.

YEAR		OPIUM
	LICIT	ILLICIT	PART

1989	905	3650	20%
1990	740	3200	19%
1991	875	3520	20%
1992	900	3550	20%
1993	610	3850	13%

Opium Producing Countries: Traditional

These are the major countries producing opium legally
in the traditional manner. The data are taken from from
1993.

COUNTRY	AREA	OPIUM	YIELD
India	11,907	345,708	29.0
China	240	19,870	82.8
Japan	1	5	6.8

Licit Opioid Production

Licit opium is rarely distributed to consumers as opium.
Instead, components are isolated and transformed and sold
as single drug medications or mixed into chemical
"cocktails". The data below are from 1993.

CHEMICAL	PERCENT
Morphine	45.8%
Codeine		42.5%
Dihydrocodeine	5.4%
Pholcodine	1.9%
Hydrocodone	1.5%
Thebaine	1.4%
Oxycodone	0.9%
Ethylmorphine	0.6%

Heroin Retail Prices

These are the prices (in inflation corrected dollars) of
a gram of heroin in Western Europe.
It was determined by the United Nations Internation Drug
Control Programme, based upon data from Austria, Belgium,
Denmark, Finland,France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy,
Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

YEAR	PRICE
1984	$200
1985	$189
1986	$225
1987	$243
1988	$250
1989	$200
1990	$211
1991	$179
1992	$168
1993	$129
1994	$132
1995	$125
1995	$111

Heroin Wholesale Prices

These are the prices (in inflation corrected dollars) of
a gram of heroin in Western Europe and the United States.
It was determined by the United Nations Internation Drug
Control Programme. The Western Europe numbers are based
upon data from Austria, Belgium,
Denmark, Finland,France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy,
Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Exactly what data
were used to get the United States numbers is not stated.

YEAR	   PRICE
	EUROPE	USA
1984	$100	$289
1985	 $83	$232
1986	$131	$207
1987	$116	$221
1988	$112	$179
1989	$100	$157
1990	 $94	$196
1991	 $72	$179
1992	 $84	$167
1993	 $61	$160
1994	 $59	$157
1995	 $57	$159
1996	 $54	$151