Oldal 2 [2]
- page two ¬
neve. Opium Convention of February 19th, 1925 and the Convention
for the Limitation of production and the control of Trade in Nar¬
ecotics of L3th July 1931. Under these agreements quotas have
been get, and the governemehis requested or rather ordered. to sub¬
mit all pertinent facts to the International Commission.
As was already pointed out, these Conventions are not
operating well at present in the world ín General. For Opium es=
pecially, the quantity authorized for the Legitimate purposes
by the Iternational Agreement is 500 tons, which are distributed
to various hations under a pre-rata system. In fact even the offi¬
cial reports of the governements admit at present a produetion of
Youghly 2000 tons, which is four times more than the original
euthorized quantity. The ehief offenders in this particular field
are Iran, Siem and Turkey. It mat be said for Turkey, that the
gituation there ta improving year by year, that tighter controls
are gradually imposed and that while the ai uation is far irom
‘deal, it is definitely on the way to 2. petter order. Siam is
accused of furnishing falee data on its preduction. Ana. as to Iran,
the whole situation thers is in a state of absolute anarchy, since
he governement itself admitted that in 1950 330 tone of the
supply of raw opium had simply vanished during A"manipulat ions"
ov “drying out " operations. - ¬
But all this is really is smell stuff, compared to some¬
thing that is really serious : the absolute refusal of the USSR and
especially Red China to furnish facts aboit their ow Opium pros
duction.
Here it should be steted, that the total world production
of Opium at this moment is estimated at 6500 tons. Of these 8% are
legel production, while 92% are illegal. Of these 92% - which
corresponds to an illegel production of 6000 tons - we have seen
thet 2000 tons, or almost exactly one third, have been accounted
for by the admssions of the sovernements., On the other band
tons this year are coming illegally from the Zone of Silence, the
Soviet Bloc. This Soviet Bloc is somposed of two Russian A&R ,
nemely the Khezak and th e Kirghiz SOR, and of two Chinese Provin¬
ceg, the Jehol and Hunan. There is production elsewhere too, but
these four ereas are the really great and important producers, who
come into account for the massive exportation.
In gome way these four areas are an economic unit at the
present time. Bhe USSR despite ite illegal production is, so far
át can be ascertained, no direct exporter of Opiume The Soviet ille¬
gal Opium is exported to Red Chine, where it is pooled with the |
larger producttons of Yunan and Jehol and hence re-exported. Intel¬
ligence sources have estimeted the production of these four Provin¬
ces or SSR's at 3600 tone in 1950 and at 4300 tons in 1951. They
algo have received information, that the production for 1952 is
likely to be from 4500 to 4600 tons. This steady increase is due
18 .