Showing posts with label smuggling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label smuggling. Show all posts

Friday, February 8, 2008

Plenty of drugs in Oman

Well, from the comments on an earlier post questioning the ROP's recent claim to have reduced drug smuggling into Oman by 90%, and a couple of confidential emails I got sent too (thanks mystery informants!), it seems pretty conclusive that there has by no means been an effective halt to the importation of drugs into Oman.
Prices for Hash and Heroin are stable, and there is plenty of both available.
Heroin is around 7.5 rials per dose. Hash, around 1.5 rial per joint. Despite there being plenty of Heroin, morphine is increasingly popular because it's purer and carries less of a stigma.

As with all countries, the problem can only be addressed on the demand side, not the supply side. With Oman's huge coastline and proximity to Pakistan and Afghanistan, combined with the historical and ongoing smuggling trade across the straight of Hormuz between Oman and Iran, its always going to be impossible to stop it. Where there is demand, the market will seek to supply. Even if the ROP were successful in blocking imports, the resulting rise in price would automatically encourage more supply. But even that isn't happening. Prices are very low and stable.
It up to more education in the schools, more rehab centers, and demand side policing. Certainly the solution is not self serving reports in the press that pretend there isn't a problem, or having draconian sentencing for the unlucky few users that get caught. There is a problem, and its getting worse. With so much unemployment and underemployment amongst the youth, its natural that Heroin will make inroads.
The problem will the current approach (here and in most countries) is that it creates a distribution system for all drugs, and thus the dealer who can supply hashish can also supply heroin. Given the non-addictiveness of hash, it's in the dealer's interest to encourage a switch to heroin. More profit and a hooked customer.
Dragon is a big fan of the Dutch approach. Make soft drugs effectively legal and concentrate on building a wall between the supply systems for soft and hard drugs.
But that won't happen, unfortunately, so its likely Oman's drug problem, and the strong drug culture building in Oman's youth, will grow.