Australian heroin seizures and the causes of the 2001 heroin shortage

Abstract

( Jiggens in this issue of International Journal of Drug Polcy has argued that law enforcement played no role in the ustralian heroin shortage in 2001 (Jiggens, 2008). He argues hat the heroin shortage can be explained by a combination of educed opium production in SE Asia and the Taliban ban on pium production in Afghanistan leading to SE Asian heroin eing diverted away from Australia to markets formerly suplied by Afghanistan. As a matter of clarification, we have never claimed that aw enforcement activity was the sole explanation of the ustralian heroin shortage; we only suggested that it conributed to its timing. We agree with Jiggens that given the omplexity of heroin markets, we should avoid “simplistic” nterpretations of the shortage. For the following reasons, we believe that Jiggens has gnored his own advice, when he concludes that the changes n the Australian heroin market were wholly explained by a eduction in heroin production. First, Afghanistan has never been a major source of heroin n Australia and there is no evidence that South East Asian eroin was diverted to Europe, the usual destination of heroin n Afghanistan. Second, reductions in heroin at source also fails to explain hy the reduction in heroin was greater in Australia any other ountry in the world, or in any country supplied by SE Asia Degenhardt, Reuter, Collins, & Hall, 2005). Jiggens argues following Wood, Stoltz, Li, Montaner, & Kerr, 2006) that the eroin shortage was not unique to Australia because a decline n heroin seizures and overdoses were subsequently reported n Vancouver (Wood et al., 2006). But, as we have argued lsewhere, there are major problems with the claim that there as a heroin shortage in Vancouver of similar magnitude o that in Australia which occurred around the same time