The Growing Importance of Ukraine as a Transit Country for Heroin Trafficking

The division among producer, transit, and consumer states of illicit drugs has clearly broken down since the late 1980’s. The 1990’s produced a globalization of illicit drug markets, with at least 134 countries and territories facing drug abuse problems in the 1990’s. Seventy-five percent of all countries 

report the abuse of heroin and two-thirds the abuse of cocaine. 

Whereas previously Western Europe and 

the U.S. were the primary consumers of heroin, there has been a dramatic increase in heroin addicts in countries that previously had no problem, e.g., Pakistan and Iran. At the global level, heroin and cocaine are the most significant drugs in terms of treatment demands, drug mortality, and drug related violence, including organized crime.

Opiates are the primary problem drugs in Western and Eastern Europe. On average, opiates account for three quarters of all treatment demand, and are also responsible for the large majority of drug-related mortality and morbidity cases. 

In the years since its independence, Ukraine has become a significant conduit for Southwest Asian (Afghanistan and Pakistan) heroin bound for European markets. 

The volume of Southwest Asian heroin available for world markets has increased sharply in recent years and growing amounts are smuggled through Ukraine. Porous borders, understaffed and under funded counter-narcotics entities and the rise of organized crime syndicates have enabled traffickers to utilize Ukraine as a viable transit point. 

Further, Ukraine has become an opiate producer in its own right, cultivating approximately 300 new hectares of illicit poppy in 2000 (Khruppa).

Full report by Abt Associates