REPORTE MUNDIAL DE DROGAS - LIBRO NRO 3: SUMINISTRO DE DROGAS

WORLD DRUG REPORT 2020
DRUG SUPPLY
Fig. 1 Opium poppy cultivation and production of opium, 1998–2019
Production (tons)
10,000
8,000
6,000
4,000
2,000
0
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
400,000
350,000
300,000
250,000
200,000
150,000
100,000
50,000
0
Cultivation (hectares)
Area under poppy cultivation
Myanmar, opium production
Lao People's Dem. Rep., opium production
Afghanistan, opium production
Mexico, opium production
Other countries, opium production
Source: UNODC calculations based on illicit crop monitoring surveys; and UNODC, responses to the annual report questionnaire.
Note: Data for 2019 are preliminary. For countries for which no estimates for 2019 are as yet available, the 2018 estimates have been
used as a proxy and those countries are included in the category of “other countries”.
Fig. 2
Farm-gate price of dry opium (dollars per kilogram)
200
150
100
50
0
Global opium production remained
largely stable in 2019
Global illicit opium production has also shown a
long-term upward trend, although it remained stable
at 7,610 tons in 2019 compared with the previous
Average dry opium farm-gate prices and highquality
heroin prices in Afghanistan, January
2017–March 2020
Jan
Apr
Jul
Oct
Jan
Apr
Jul
Oct
Jan
Apr
Jul
Oct
Jan
2017 2018 2019 2020
Opium prices
Heroin prices
4,000
3,000
2,000
1,000
Source: Afghanistan, Ministry of Counter-Narcotics, Afghanistan drug price
monitoring monthly report (April 2020), and previous years.
0
Price of high-quality heroin (dollars per kilogram)
year (7,620 tons in 2018) and was 26 per cent lower
than the peak reported in 2017 (10,270 tons).
Despite the decline in the area under opium poppy
cultivation in 2019, opium production remained
stable in 2019, with higher yields reported in the
main opium production areas for 2019, as neither
disease nor drought – as occurred in previous years
– reduced opium output in 2019.
Taking opium consumption into account, estimated
global opium production in 2019 would have been
sufficient to manufacture 472–722 tons of heroin
(expressed at export purities) – in other words, quantities
similar to the previous year.
Despite global opium production in 2018 being less
than in 2017, there have been no indications to date
of a shortage in the supply of heroin to the respective
consumer markets. In 2018 and 2019, both
opium and heroin prices declined in the main opium
production areas in Afghanistan, with opium farmgate
prices falling by an average of 37 per cent (on
a year earlier) in 2018 and by 24 per cent in 2019,
while high-quality heroin prices fell by an average
of 11 per cent in 2018 and by 27 per cent in 2019
in Afghanistan. 1 Due to the bumper opium harvest
1 Afghanistan, Ministry of Counter-Narcotics and UNDOC,
Afghanistan drug price monitoring monthly report (April
2020), and previous years.
10