Three years after Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, the supreme leader of the Taliban, announced his religious edict banning poppy cultivation, Afghan heroin traders continue to innovate. The latest report by the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA), published in late May, unearths a complex picture of Afghanistan’s drug industry and its ability to respond to changing market conditions. Its findings highlight that Europe will continue to receive superior quality opium-derived products (like heroin), while those more adulterated are marketed in other global regions. The report cautiously supports claims that Europe’s opium supply is insulated from supply-side shocks – for now.
The ban crashed Afghan opium cultivation to record-level lows; yet, “no real shortages” were seen in destination markets, with Central Asian regional authorities even registering an increase in its trafficking. Predictions weighted on insights from the 2001 opium ban had warned that Europe’s heroin markets would be affected in 18 to 24 months, but have since been proven categorically wrong. So, what happened, and where does this leave Europe?
Unlike 2001, the 2022 ban was implemented two weeks before the year’s main harvest. This meant farmers were granted a two-month grace period where they could collect their opium crops before the ban’s implementation. The landed farmers of the south and southwest were key benefactors, capable of cultivating surplus opium and storing the non-perishable product; they built significant inventories to benefit from the correctly anticipated rising prices. Conservative estimates claim that in the former desert areas of the south and southwest regions, farmers accrued an inventory of 13,700 tonnes of opium in 2022, enough to make 760 tonnes of heroin base. This can partly explain why landed farmers have mostly complied with the ban (although some cultivation is still happening), yet there has been no drop in seizures of opium-derived products in neighbouring Pakistan, Iran and Tajikistan.
Sophisticated adulteration
The report’s author told TalkingDrugs observed that higher opium prices have meant a more costly production process for traders, triggering a greater use of adulterants. But, crucially, this is not a haphazard or lazy process – a common misconception of Afghan cooks. Despite not wearing white coats or having formal chemistry degrees, the author underscored the consistently high quality of finished products and their reactions to changing market dynamics. What the evidence shows is that opium adulteration is a complex, calculated, yet poorly understood process; understanding it will be key to make sense of what the Taliban opium ban will mean for the future of opioids (and synthetic analogues) in Europe and beyond.
Now, opium adulteration has been happening for years at all levels of production. Farmers have been known to add sugar (“gura”), fruit (“anjaroot”), or tree gum (“largay”) to increase the weight of their product; farm-gate traders (those buying opium immediately after cultivation) add further adulterants to increase their profit margins. This opium will then be processed by laboratory owners, whom national and international traders employ on a ‘produce-to-order’ basis. These owners will then hire cooks, seeking only the best when the quality demands it.
What’s on the menu?
Traders commission a variety of opium-derived products from cooks. The four main commissioned products for international markets are beest (morphine base), gul (heroin base), spin maal (heroin hydrochloride), and crystal (low-quality heroin hydrochloride). These products are produced with their destination markets in mind, determining how much they will adulterate the final product.
Take the examples of heroin base (first image below) and heroin hydrochloride (second image below). Traders continue to claim that Europe-bound heroin base is being less commonly adulterated (at least within Afghanistan) as they prioritise their best product for their most lucrative markets. Whereas heroin hydrochloride, usually destined for Asian markets, is often significantly adulterated. If you were looking to purchase heroin hydrochloride in southwest Afghanistan (like Balochistan and Helmand), you could buy “Indian”, a high-quality product, or “Iranian”, a lower-quality product that costs around two to three times less. If you were in Badakhshan, the mountainous region in the northeast of the country which has continued to cultivate opium poppies (albeit in smaller quantities), you could purchase heroin hydrochloride in batches of 40%, 60%, or 80% purity.
In the video below, a heroin trader inspects the product by coating the blade of his knife with the final product, checking if he has added the correct amount of a powdered mix to the opium. The likely adulterants for the Iranian-bound product are a mix of caffeine, anjaroot and zerha chakai (an unknown product).
To illustrate the make-up of opium products’ adulteration, one trader had commissioned in 2024 a sample of heroin destined for Iran. Closer analysis of its contents showed that when leaving Afghanistan, its purity level was around 50%; the other 50% was adulterated with a mix of caffeine (30%), “spice” (11.6%), “gur” (5%), and “shna masala” (green spice) (3.3%). “Gur” is an impurity produced as a byproduct from the conversion of morphine base into heroin base, and “spice” was a unclear collection of powders that the author struggled to verify what they contained.
How has adulteration changed post-opium ban?
High opium prices have radically increased the cost of production for all opium-derived products. Comparing pre-ban opium prices to their peak in 2023, the price of opium in Nangarhar (eastern region) and Kandahar (southern region) quadrupled. Even with falling prices in 2024, the cost of opium remained almost three times what it was pre-ban.
To put this increase into context, the cost of opium as a proportion of the cost of producing heroin base has increased by 12% from September 2018 to December 2023. This meant that the cost of buying opium represented 99% of the entire production costs of heroin base.
This price spike has prompted traders to find alternative methods to protect their profit margins. Traders have a few options at their disposal:
- Use cheaper opium bought before the ban;
- Improve conversion rates, meaning they increase their yield from the processed raw opium;
- Pass on the increasing costs along the supply chain;
- Adulterate the product, reducing the amount of opium used.
The EUDA found strong indicators (corroborated by laboratory owners) that the last option has become the most common. The price of common adulterants has risen similarly to the price of opium: the price of “kapeen” (most likely caffeine) peaked in late 2023 and fell in 2024; this suggests that as the price of opium rose, so did the demand for (and price of) adulterants. Conversely, the price of “acid” (likely acetic anhydride) – often used to improve opium’s conversion rate – remained relatively stable, meaning it hasn’t experienced the same rise in demand.
What does rising adulteration of Afghan heroin mean?
While the opium ban led to more adulteration, this isn’t news. It’s a common and dynamic practice of domestic and international traders commissioning different cooks to produce market-specific products that maximise their profits within their current supply. The report’s author acknowledges that there’s been a rise in adulteration due to rises in its price, but the quality and supply of Afghanistan heroin bound to Europe remains protected.
This doesn’t mean, however, that the situation wouldn’t change – especially if opium prices remain as high as they currently stand. The Afghan drug industry has already proven its ability to embrace innovations to maintain its profitability, so whilst there haven’t been signs of an incoming shortage, Europe cannot afford to be complacent.
As the author put it to TalkingDrugs: “Never underestimate the ability of drug markets to adapt and innovate, including those in Afghanistan, and particularly when exposed to shocks such as the Taliban drug ban.”
This research highlighted that the opium market conditions in 2022 were very different to those of 2001; with a different landscape, it’s imperative for early drug warning systems to be in place to test substances and understand what adulterants are being put in place. Preparedness will be key to avoiding any deadly surprises.
