The head of Pakistan Drug Regulatory Authority, Asim Rauf, says that there is no possibility of Pakistani drugs being smuggled into Afghanistan in the preparation of ice addiction.
The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) on Friday ruled out illegal importation of cold tablets from Pakistan in the manufacture of methamphetamine (ice) in Afghanistan.
A report released by the United Nations Office on Drug Control (UNODS) on September 10 said that Afghanistan has become the center of the drug called methamphetamine (ice) worldwide .
According to the report, cold tablets are illegally imported from Pakistan in the preparation of this drug.
In this regard, when Independent Urdu spoke to Asim Rauf, the head of DROP, he said, "Pakistan has strict laws regarding ephedrine and pseudo-ephedrine."
"As far as smuggling is concerned, I don't think there is a possibility of (Afghanistan smuggling)," he said.
When Independent Urdu asked that the report of the United Nations Office on Narcotics Control clearly states that licensed ephedrine tablets are smuggled from Pakistan, he did not give any answer to the question.
The United Nations report further states that methamphetamine (meth) or commonly known as ice is a drug that is produced in various ways and is in increasing demand all over the world, including Afghanistan and Pakistan. Is.
According to the report, a total of 29 tons of ice was caught in Afghanistan in 2021.
According to the United Nations report, 5,000 tons of dry ephedrine plants are required to make this amount of ice, while if it is made from pills, 746 tons of pills will be needed.
The report cited a survey and wrote that 'in 2020, the use of ice among children between the ages of 13 and 18 in Afghanistan has exceeded that of heroin, with two children in every 100 using ice and one child using heroin. .'
In the same report, the statistics are estimated from the ice catches in other countries, including Afghanistan.
According to the data in the report, compared to 100 kilos of ice seized in 2017, the shipment in 2021 has reached about 29 tons and the largest shipment is caught smuggling from Afghanistan, including other countries.
In the report attributed to the Iranian authorities, it was written that '90 percent of the smuggled ice in Iran was smuggled from Afghanistan, while the same trend has been seen in Pakistan that most of the smuggled ice is smuggled from Afghanistan.'
In the same report, it is written that 'Ice is made in two ways in Afghanistan, in which a special type of plant is used which is called 'epidural plant' while the other way is made with different drugs and chemicals which I also include cold and flu pills.'
Making ice or meth from the plant
The report further states that ice or methamphetamine is made from a plant called 'ephedra' and it does not require much skill to make ice from this plant.
According to the report, there is no international control or ban on this plant and it is also known as 'Ma Huang' in Central Asian countries. In Chinese medicine, including Central Asia, this plant is also used to treat various diseases such as respiratory diseases, allergies, colds, and in some countries, medicines made from this plant are also used for weight loss.
While in some countries of Central Asia, this plant is also used as animal fodder and cooking fuel.
According to the same report, a substance called ephedrine or pseudo-ephedrine is found in this plant, which is used in making ice, while some species of the same plant do not contain this substance.
According to the report, when the ephedral plant grows in mountainous areas at an altitude of 5,000 meters above sea level, the amount of ephedrine in it increases.
While in Afghanistan, it is grown in various mountainous areas at an altitude of 2500 to 3000 meters and is harvested between July and October.
This plant is also imported in Pakistan which is used in the preparation of medicines.
According to the report, other chemicals are mixed with the same plant to make ice in large quantities and ice is made from it.
In terms of quantity, according to the report, 531 tons of plants are needed to produce about three tons of 100 percent pure ice, while 478 tons of plants produce 90 percent pure ice, 399 tons of plants produce 75 percent pure, and 266 tons of plants produce 50 percent. Pure ice is made.
Opium has been controlled, other drugs will also be controlled: Afghan spokesman
Regarding the increasing use and supply of ice in the country, Zabihullah Mujahid, the main spokesman of the interim government of Afghanistan, told Independent Urdu that the same way his government has controlled the cultivation of opium, the same way other drugs can be controlled. is being attempted.
He said, 'We will intensify efforts to prevent other drugs and take measures to stop their trafficking.'
Zabihullah said that the plant you mentioned was smuggled before our government, but now we have closed the smuggling routes and banned the use of this plant.
He said that the cultivation and harvesting of this plant in Afghanistan is prohibited.
Discovery of making ice from cold medicine
The report also revealed that cold and flu pills are also used in the manufacture of ice in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and it is estimated in the report that this drug is legally required in Afghanistan. More is being produced.
According to the data of the report, in the data collected from Afghanistan in 2021, it is written that the country has a demand of 150 kg of ephedrine and 2800 kg of pseudoephedrine while this demand was 50 kg of ephedrine and 300 kg of pseudoephedrine in 2014. '
From these statistics, it is estimated that Afghanistan does not have the pharmaceutical facilities to manufacture such quantities of this drug, so it is highly likely that the cold medicine is used to make ice.
According to the report, in 2020 and 2021, 46% of the tablets in the ice produced in Afghanistan were found to contain ingredients used as medicine for colds and flu in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This drug is sold in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the form of tablets and syrup.
According to the report, some photographic evidence has also revealed that cold syrup is also used in making ice, as a large number of cold syrup bottles have been found in some waste places.
The report states that tablets sold in Pakistan contain between 15 and 120 grams of ephedrine (used in making ice) per dose, with pseudoephedrine containing between nine percent and 60 percent, and also Used in making ice.
Cost of plant-based ice
In terms of quantity of tablets and ice making, about three tons of cold tablets produce 75 tons of 100% pure ice, 68 tons of 90% pure ice, 57 tons of 75% pure ice and 38 tons of 50% pure ice.
Pure means that the more ephedrine it contains, the purer the ice is.
According to the report, ice made from this plant is cheaper than ice made from cold pills because it costs less. Apart from this, the report also states that these pills are cheaper in Pakistan than in Afghanistan.
The report said that the price of 100 tablets is around Rs 800, but in Pakistan, the price of 100 tablets is around Rs 450.
In comparison, the cost of one kilogram of ephedral plant is three dollars per kilogram, while the cost of cold pills is about $38 per kilogram.
According to April 2023 prices, one kilogram of ice in Afghanistan costs around $700, the report says. Similarly, the price of less pure ice drops from $413 to $295.
While the price of ice made from cold medicine is $538 to $748 per kg and the price of plant-based ice is lower.
Beijing : Has China's employment situation improved? Officially renamed "slow employment"
China's National Bureau of Statistics said on September 15 that the unemployment rate fell in August and youth employment showed an overall improvement trend. However, the authorities did not provide any specific data on this. Has the actual employment situation in China really improved?
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It is difficult to get a job after taking the college entrance examination. The government guides graduates to work in urban and rural communities.
Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics of China show that in August, China's national urban surveyed unemployment rate was 5.2%, down 0.1 percentage points from the previous month, lower than the same period last year, and the same as the same period in 2019 before the epidemic.
As for the youth unemployment rate that the outside world is most concerned about, it is still a mysterious unknown. Fu Linghui, spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics of China, said, “Judging from our survey and data from some departments this year, youth employment improved significantly in August this year, indicating that the effects of employment policies, especially youth employment policies, are gradually emerging. "
According to information released by Chinese officials, the youth unemployment rate reached 21.3% in June, a record high. In other words, 1 out of every 5 young people in China is unemployed. But starting from August, Chinese officials no longer publish relevant statistics.
After Chinese officials stopped releasing information on youth unemployment rate, a new term "slow employment" emerged. "China Youth Daily" A recent survey of 2,009 respondents by the Social Survey Center United Questionnaire Network showed that 72.9% of the respondents were surrounded by college students who were "slowly employed"; 62.4% of the respondents believed that college students choose "Slow employment" is due to the lack of planning for the future.
Xia Qingyun, an associate researcher at the China Employment Research Institute, said in the article, "'Slow employment' for college students is gradually being accepted and practiced, and has become a new employment concept."
China's August economic data rises slightly, real estate remains sluggish
Economic data released by the China Bureau of Statistics on Friday were mixed. Among them, the added value of China's large-scale industrial enterprises increased by 4.5% year-on-year in August, 0.8 percentage points faster than the previous month, and 0.5% month-on-month; the national service industry production index increased by 6.8% year-on-year, 1.1 percentage points faster than the previous month; social consumer goods Total retail sales were 3,793.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.6%, 2.1 percentage points faster than the previous month.
However, from January to August, China's national fixed asset investment (excluding rural households) increased by 3.2% year-on-year, down 0.2 percentage points from January to July. Among them, investment in real estate development fell by 8.8%. The sales area of commercial housing nationwide was 739.49 million square meters, a year-on-year decrease of 7.1%; the sales volume of commercial housing was 7.8158 billion yuan, a decrease of 3.2%.
Dilemma of China's central bank cutting reserve requirement to stimulate economy and exchange rate depreciation
Former investment banker Wang Hao said in an interview with this station that the Chinese government has recently taken many measures, including in the real estate industry, and ordinary people's consumption and industrial production will be affected by these measures: "Is it going to bottom out and go up? There’s a lot to see.”
Wang Hao pointed out that a lot of China's real estate transaction volume comes from, for example, "fake divorces and real house purchases." One party who is single again and has no house or mortgage under his name can still enjoy the discount for the first home to avoid the purchase restriction policy. In addition, the People's Bank of China announced that the minimum down payment ratio for the first set will be unified to no less than 20%, and the minimum down payment ratio for the second set will be unified to no less than 30%: "It can be seen that the data is related to everyone's desire to further cash out. This is a short-term The effect is that the risk is actually transferred to the bank.”
In addition, Caixin reported that on the evening of the 14th, the People's Bank of China issued an announcement stating that in order to consolidate the foundation for economic recovery, it would lower the deposit reserve ratio of financial institutions by 0.25 percentage points on the 15th. This is the second reserve requirement ratio cut by the People's Bank of China this year after two interest rate cuts in June and August. It is expected to release 500 billion yuan in medium- and long-term liquidity.
Wang Hao pointed out that the People's Bank of China's lower reserve ratio will put greater pressure on the depreciation of the RMB. Essentially, in order to save the economy, the Chinese government wants to increase the supply of RMB in the financial system, whether through interest rate cuts or RRR cuts. However, the more RMB there is, the easier it is to depreciate: “It is impossible to stimulate the economy and guard the RMB at the same time. exchange rate. I think they have decided that they can withstand further depreciation of the renminbi and increase liquidity through this method."
China's foreign investment attractiveness continues to decline
According to the China Federation of Finance and Economics, the latest data from the Ministry of Commerce of China showed that China had 33,154 newly established foreign-invested enterprises, a year-on-year increase of 33%, but the actual amount of foreign capital used was 847.17 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 5.1%.