Thursday 13 May 2010

Deliberately misleading statistic of the day

The BBC says:

Afghanistan produces 92% of the world's opium.

Having scratted around the back of the internet, it would appear to be true that it produces 92% of the world's illegal opium (i.e. as good as all of it), but what I wonder is, what percent of all poppies (whether for 'legal' or 'ilegal' purposes) are grown in Afgh?

It appears that in Afgh, about 200,000 hectares (that's about half a million acres, in old money) are used to grow poppies, whereas: "Tasmania supplies about 50 percent of the world's raw material for morphine and related opiates. About 500 farmers grow the crop on 49,420 acres of land."

Ho hum. So, across the globe, that's 100,000 acres used for 'legal' poppies and 500,000 used for 'illegal' poppies (which means that five-sixths of all land used for poppy cultivation is in Afgh), but is this the final answer (in which case the BBC's statistic wasn't far off)? Or is there perhaps a difference in yield/acre? If, for example, Tasmanian/Indian yields are five times Afgh yields (ignoring this year's blight), then (mathematically), Afgh is only responsible for half of global poppy production. i.e. the 'illegal' half.

Answers on a postcard.

13 comments:

Chuckles said...

SO why don't the western governments simply buy the entire crop from them, and then auction it off to the highest bidder?

AntiCitizenOne said...

Demand expands supply.

bayard said...

Chuckles, because that would upset the legal growers, who, or at least the Tasmanian ones, are in some sort of cartel, IIRC.

Mark Wadsworth said...

C, see what B says. It's the Righteous in the US and Tasmanian poppy growers behind all this.

AC1, sure, but...
1. Applying Ricardo's Law of Comparative advantage, we ought to be buying opiates and cannabis from Afgh.
2. Total demand for opiates is fairly fixed - we can make the 'illegal' supply into 'legal' supply overnight by prescribing the stuff on the NHS (with a modest daily prescription charge to cover the cash cost).
3. Surely the Australians are organised enough to stamp out 'illegal' poppy growing?

Chuckles said...

Indeed, points taken. I was not suggesting they buy the crop and destroy it. Merely realigning the supply channels.
There is obviously a market for it, so sell it to the highest bidder, including Mr. M Edellin, C Osanostra etc etc whoever pays.
Should save several billion in 'War on Drug' costs, and be cheaper than the current 'War in Afghanistan'.
Heavens, they can even tax it if they want. Or supply it on the NHS,as Mark suggests.

It shouldn't make any difference to the shysters cartel in Tas, they can carry on with their existing customers?
Now all we have to do is work out how to get our cut.

James Higham said...

Surely Colombia has a fair bit.

Mark Wadsworth said...

C, we already have the troops in place, which is a good start. We could make the Afgh occupation self-financing - we defend, export and market their crop; in exchange they pay us protection money (until a few decades later they are rich and sophisticated enough to chuck us out and do all this themselves, in which case, job done).

JH, Colombia is mainly cocaine AFAIAA.

Chuckles said...

Yup, you catch on fast. Cures a whole lot of problems at once, and we simply sit back and let wealth and our weapons of cultural mass destruction (Ipod, Coca-Cola, Levis, etc h/t Jerry Pournelle) do the rest.

woman on a raft said...

Al Jahom has dug up a pair of interesting "then and now" stories which may affect the economics of poppy. However, it isn't possible to say if they really are connected.

Tim Worstall said...

Well, don't forget, the poppies in gardens across England can also produce opium.

Not a lot, to be sure, but dried they make a nice opium tea.

So the acreage devoted to poppies is somewhat understated....

Chuckles said...

Tim, We bow to your superior knowledge and familiarity with the market.

Tastes just like Earl Grey does it?

Physiocrat said...

It grows in the Pavilion Gardens in Brighton

Chuckles said...

And in other news -

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37134751/ns/us_news-security/