Be it heroin or hashish, Pakistan is amongst the top countries that use and abuse them. Where the country faces many other social issues, use of illicit drugs is the rise in the country, dismantling the leftover hopes for social and economic development. Amongst some developing trends of illicit drugs suggested by UN in its recent report, key concerns for Asia are the use and cultivation of opioids primarily heroin, cannabis in form of hashish and marijuana and amphetamine type stimulants (ATS). The use of opium and heroin in Asia is analogous to the global average. Though globally, the use of opiate category has seen a decreasing or stable trend in CY11, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and the Central Asian countries continue to lead the opium consumption in the global estimate. Trends in the region also propose an increasing use of cannabis particularly hashish, in Central Asia and South West Asia. During CY11, heroin seizures worldwide remained rather stable primarily on account of the falling production in Afghanistan after CY07 and the shortage of opium in Afghanistan in CY10. Pakistan was amongst the top heroin seizing country where its heroin seizures doubled to 4.2 tons in CY10. It followed Iran, Turkey and China. The country not only suffers from a high usage of illicit drugs like heroin, but has also become a strategic intermediary for smuggling heroin from Afghanistan to China of late. The emergence of heroin trafficking via Iran and Pakistan is named an important factor in the rising consumption of heroin in the region. Global opium and morphine seizures also concentrated in the South West Asia, particularly in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. Even when the Afghan poppy disease reduced the supply of opium in the world by great volumes, seizures of opium and morphine in CY10 increased in Pakistan. Cannabis, another global phenomenon, has seen a steadily rising trend in Pakistan. The seizures of hashish increased sharply from CY08, with 212 tons being seized in CY10, almost twice the CY07 level. This is of prime importance as it pinpoints to a developing feature in cannabis production trend: there could be likely a tilt towards Afghanistan in hashish production, after a fall in production in Morocco - the worlds largest hashish producer. As far as the prices of these illicit drugs are concerned, prices of opium surged in the country after the CY10 shortage in Afghanistan. Prices of hashish increased three times from $200 in CY09 to $630 in CY12. Though price increased in parallel to opium due to aforementioned reasons, the rise in prices is also due to the strategic role Pakistan played in seizing more hashish for the lucrative demand in Canada and Sri Lanka. A decline in poppy cultivation in the country is not much of a reason to rejoice as the trafficking and smuggling of drugs through Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan is a warning to drug use in the country. Even with the decline in cultivation, Pakistan remains similar to Western Europe in terms of drug use.
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