OPIUM - 'use , cultures, production, and distribution' BLOCK 1 (Online only).

Question 1

FILM 1 - OPIUM USE, CULTURE AND ADDICTION.- Film 1

Answer 1

1. In Western society opium has two different faces, one for medicinal (LEGAL) and one in the criminal justice system (ILLEGAL)
2. Opium as a commodity is by no means a modern phenomenon

Question 2

LEGAL USE OF ‘OPIUM’ - MEDICINAL COMMODITY.

Answer 2

1. No better analgesic, pain relieving substance than OPIOIDS.
2. ‘BENEFITS’ OF OPIOIDS FOR PAIN RELIEF - They are given after:

a) heart attacks
b) broken bone pain
c) cancer pain (slow-release morphine)
d) Complex regional pain syndrome

3. NEGATIVES/DANGERS OF ‘LEGAL OPIOIDS’ (HARMS)

a) side effects
b) sleepiness/drowsiness
c) constipation
d) itching
e) Iatrogenic addiction
e) physical dependence
f) drug misuse
g) addiction
h) exclusion

4. HISTORICALLY - Opiates were used by middle class women in US and UK for pain relief in liquid form as they id not have things such as PENICILLIN etc. In contrast people in china used opiates as a social drug in opium dens.
5. Opiates were also used for sexual exploitation of working-class children by adults

Question 3

ILLEGAL DISTRIBUTION OF DRUGS - LOCAL LEVEL - BALTIMORE USA. - War on Drugs.

Answer 3

1. DEA - street level heroin is coming at 60% pure. The supply is greater than ever. Opium as an illegal commodity. This has led to higher than ever addiction rates and death by overdose.
2. The problem is the illegal black market, suppliers competing with one another.
3. NETWORK - There is a pyramid of distribution (Hierarchy). Top man down to the street dealers in terms of money.
4. Some dealers have morals and wont sell to kids, pregnant women etc, others will sell to anyone.

Question 4

LEGAL OPIUM PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION:

BY PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES SUCH AS PURDUE PHARMA

Answer 4

1. In the UK and US pharmaceutical companies employ 1. drugs reps to befriend, market, and sell prescription drugs to doctors.
2. It is argued that aggressive global promotion and direct local advertising to consumers in the US by powerful pharmaceutical companies harms doctors and patients by misleading them about the benefits of opiate-based drugs.
3. For instance, an illustration of how power, harm, violence, and injustice intersect on a global and local level is evident in a court case brought against Purdue Pharma in 2007.
4. By this, the pharmaceutical industry’s funding of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is argued to have enabled Purdue Pharma to inaccurately promote OXYCONTIN as less-addictive than similar opioids due to a weakening in control and regulation .
5. As a consequence, Purdue Pharma’s misleading advertisements are argued to be responsible for many consumer deaths worldwide by perpetrating the overuse of Oxycontin.
6. Harms such as drug dependence and IATROGENIC ADDICTION are alleged to be produced, as advertising affects what doctors prescribe and what patients receive.
7. Injustice is argued here as Purdue Pharma received a $600 million fine, yet maintained huge profits by making $2 billion in Oxycontin sales in the US alone
8. This exemplifies the argument that the ‘powerful’ decide who and what is criminalised, as no Purdue Pharma employees were incarcerated despite pleading guilty to criminal charges .

Question 5

POLICY FOR DISTRIBUTING LEGAL PAINKILLERS - GOVERNMENT RESTRICTION.

Answer 5

1. The distribution of prescription drugs is also affected by local and global relations through increased government restriction in policy
2. On a local level, each state in the US has a medical board with the power to oversee medical practice laws that determine what doses doctors can prescribe and what doses patients receive
3. By this, some state medical boards approve their doctors to prescribe at higher doses, YET in other states, power and state-inflicted harms intersect as doctors fear licence revocation for prescribing high doses of opiates
4. Moreover, this and a fear of patients developing IATROGENIC ADDICTION can inadvertently lead to other harms caused through under-prescription of ‘opioids’.
5. From a global perspective, the implications of different government policy choices mean that legal painkillers are unevenly distributed worldwide.
6. In short, the western world consumes 95% of the worlds morphine despite representing 20% of the world’s population, and the rest of the world shares the remaining 5%.
7. For instance, it is argued that restrictive global legislation and fear of the black market prevents cheap opioids being imported to developing countries.
8. In consequence, the global and the local intertwine as powerful bodies such as the ‘International Narcotics Control Board’ induce preventable harms such as disease and death by rejecting village hospital requests for painkillers.

Question 6

ILLEGAL OPIUM PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION - GLOBAL Opium as an illegal commodity.

AFGHANISTAN and TAJIKSTAN.

From a contemporary perspective: Afghanistan is the world’s biggest opium producer today.

By this, the global and the local are intrinsically connected as statistics report 99% of heroin distributed into Britain originates in Afghanistan.

As a result, people on Britain’s streets are subjected to harms such as addiction, drug dependence, social exclusion, and health issues such as HIV and Hepatitis-C

Answer 6

1. Ninety nine per cent of heroin on British streets originates from Afghanistan.
2. Today - Afghanistan is synonymous with opium and conflict
3. The opium trade spread to southeast Asia, Iran Pakistan, and Afghanistan, where Afghanistan at the beginning of 21st century become the worlds biggest opium producer.
4. Desperate conditions in Afghanistan, such as no electricity, irrigation, employment, no legitimate market for afghan opium, meant Poppy farmers in Afghanistan produce opiates illegally where it is converted to heroin and smuggled to illegal markets globally.
5. It is smuggled through Tajikistan, and Tajikistan’s law enforcement seize as much narcotics as all the other countries of central Asia combined.
6. Poverty and lack of resources mean locals support opium trade as this brings in a lot of money. There is a an attraction to drug smuggling as the amount of money available from smugglers is much higher than what the state can provide in salaries. (this society considers it to be morally acceptable).
7. CORRUPTION (POWER)- BORDER GUARDS can be bribed, as salaries are poor, and there is organised crime within the state as people are given orders to look the other way at certain areas of the border, allowing drugs to be smuggled out.
8. (POWER) - This can only happen if it is coordinated by POWERFUL PEOPLE at the top level, it could not happen otherwise. In a pyramid structure, money comes in from the border officials and goes up through the ministry.
9. As a result there is a growing problem of consumption and addiction to heroin, i.e in the area of Dushanbe. Here, there is addiction and HIV problem.
10. Drug dealers try to recruit wealthy people, get them hooked, get them to work for them

Question 7

THE OPIUM WARS - HISTORICALLY

Answer 7

1. HISTORICALLY - A trade war with China made the British Empire the biggest traffickers in the world - The Opium Wars
2. British traded opium despite the Chinese emperor declaring a ban on opium, as a result of this poison and the increased addiction of his people -HARMS
3. However - the British ethos in that era of free trade meant that a lot of pressure was put on china to open its borders and markets, and was smuggled in through china’s ports by local merchants.
4. Chinese in response burnt illegal opium cargoes , and this escalated into war, as the British forced the Chinese to surrender free-trade areas, including Hong Kong, through which opium could continue to be traded. China was forced to sign treaties to allow Britain and other countries to trade freely in ports.
5. The role of opium as an ‘illegal’ commodity is important in terms of global relations and conflicts
6. Historically, the nineteenth century ‘Opium Wars’ illustrates how power, harm, and violence intersect on a global and local scale as Britain forced China to open its borders and surrender free-trade areas for the distribution of opium.
7. In consequence, China, Hong Kong, and other countries suffered harms such as addiction and death as the opium trade spread over time

Question 8

WAR ON DRUGS by the DRUGS ENFORCEMENT AGENCY (DEA).

Answer 8

1. The production and distribution of illegal drugs on a global scale has seen the US wage a ‘War on drugs’ since the 1970’s - NIXON was president.
2. By this, the Drug enforcement Administration (DEA) was founded to control and regulate the production and distribution of drugs on the problematic black market in US cities such as Baltimore.
3. From this perspective, power is argued to intersect with harm and violence on a local and global level, as the DEA targeted ‘organised networks’ responsible for producing harms such as overdose through the distribution of imported high-potency heroin
4. However, an alternate perspective is that the impact of global trafficking on the US has produced an injustice through the ‘DISPROPORTIONATE CRIMINALISATION’ of certain groups by the DEA.
5. Unlike pharmaceutical company’s employees that arguably impose greater harm yet are rarely incarcerated, the war on drugs is argued to have produced harms for young black men and women from ethnic minorities through mass incarceration
6. To emphasise this injustice, 1.3% of the population addicted to drugs today reflects the figure reported when the war on drugs started.

Question 9

IMPACT OF GLOBALISATION ON AFGHANISTAN

Answer 9

1. The impact of globalisation on localities in developing countries such as Afghanistan is evident as it is argued that Afghan farmers are constrained to illegally produce opium due to state-inflicted harms such as poverty, unemployment, food shortages, and no electricity
2. By this, political power entangles with harm and violence on a local level, as the state consequently destroys farmers crops and socially-constructs them and their actions as criminal
3. As a consequence, proposed schemes to legitimise the opium market in Afghanistan by the ‘International Council on Security and Development’ are obstructed by state regulation and licensing of opium
4. Nevertheless, a consequence of countries opening their borders to global trade is global drug trafficking and corruption
5. By this, power and harm link as powerful drug traffickers financially corrupt state services and its border guards into allowing them to smuggle unregulated drugs into transit countries such as Tajikistan, and areas such as Dushanbe
6. As a result, harms include global threat to security and increased consumption and addiction of heroin within such localities
7. However, border employees and locals (LOCALITIES) are argued to be morally accepting of the global drug trade, as it enables them to better support their families financially