Ilicit Drugs Trail

Pakistan remains a major transit country for opiates and hashish grown in Afghanistan, which produces 90 percent of the world's supply of opium. Although no exact figure exists for the quantity of narcotics flowing across the Pakistan-Afghan border, the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) estimates that 30 percent of illicit opiates exported from Afghanistan transit Pakistan en route to Iran, Western Europe, the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula, Africa, and East Asia.

The global market for illicit opiates is US$65 billion. This number is higher than the GDP of more than 120 countries in the world. Around 80 percent of the opiates are trafficked via Afghanistan's borders with Pakistan and Iran at a total export value of US$10.5 billion. Every year, about 3,500 tons of opium flow from Afghanistan to the rest of the world. In Eastern Europe, Russia and Asia, opiates are the most prevalent drug. Europe has an estimated 3.4-4 million opiate users while the Russian Federation has the largest opiate-using population in Eastern Europe estimated at 1.68 million users.