Criminology and Psychology

Heroin production in Afghanistan is booming as the Taliban raises money to pay for its insurgency, and there are fears the heroin is making its way to Sydney, filling the void created when Asian production fell and the heroin drought began almost a decade ago.Aladdin's Cave of confiscated narcotics in Kabul, among hollow samurai swords, car parts and fake almonds stuffed with drugs, lie two envelopes. Both had been bound for Sydney.Each contained a marketable quantity - 10 grams - of brown heroin, a colour that distinguishes west Asian production, and a size that reflects, say drug experts, a growing trend towards importing small amounts of heroin to avoid detection.What the people who intended to pick those packages up from newsagency postboxes in Leichhardt and Westmead might not have appreciated is that by ordering Afghan heroin, they were financing the Taliban's battle against Australian forces. Afghan police will soon burn the tonne of heroin, tonne of opiates and five ton...