MADE FOR EXPORT

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 34, 9 August 1934, Page 22

MADE FOR EXPORT

BULGARIAN HEROIN

PEASANT ECONOMICS

While the world is discussing poia6u ivari'aro, there is a peacetime poison campaign going on constantly. It was lately stated before the League of Nations that ten Bulgarian factories arc producing annually enough heroin to poison three million people. The ten factories are making twice as much heroin as could meet the medical requirements of the world.

It was also stated that drug addiction does not exist in Bulgaria and that Bulgarian public opinion sees nothing criminal in tho manufacture and export of narcotic products.

For more than half a century the Balkans have been regarded as a seedbed of wai's, but as a seed-bod of narcotic plants the Balkan States, might be even worse.

The Advisory Committee of the League of Nations received a statomeut from Russell Pasha, director of the International Narcotic Intelligence Bureau at Cairo. He said it was impossible not to have some sympathy with the Macedonian peasant, who, owing to political events, had lost the Salonika market for his tobacco, while the price of wheat in many districts was insufficient to pay the cost of growing. It was estimated that the opium production would this year bring a return of 60,000,000 levas (about £150,000) to these peasants. Their opposition, therefore, to any restriction could easily be understood. The fact remained that Bulgaria was today the one source in Europo of wholesale illicit manufacture of heroin, attracting to herself all the. scoundrels of Europe, infecting her. neighbours with the same temptation, to make illicit profits, and stultifying tho efforts of Geneva through her several international conventions. '. ACETIC ANHYDRIDE. The Geneva correspondent of "The Times," summarising evidence by Busscl Pasha and Mr. Stuart Fuller (U.S. delegate), says it is estimated that tho illicit output of heroin for tho present year of ten hitherto secret Bulgarian factories will be not less than 3000 kilogrammes. Mr. Fuller showed tjiat acetic anhydride had a place in the manufacture of certain dyestuffs, aspirin, rayon, and heroin. If aspirin wore produced by tho ton, be said, the imports of that chemical couia bo accounted for to a certain extent, but in a country which did not produce aspirin, rayon, or dyestuffs it was reasonable^ to suppose that acetic anhydride was ininortod for just one purpose-—the manufaeturo of heroin. Acetic anhydride did not appear separately in. the Bulgarian import statistics. His investigators had been informed, however, that the exports to Bulgaria in 1932 and 1033 were mostly from Germany, but also in part from France. Such information as it had been possible to obtain indicator! that the world export to Bulgaria of acetic anhydride for .tho last four years had amounted to about 21.2001b, a quantity which would Have sufficed for. the manufacturo of at least TO.fiOOJb of heroin, and probably of much more. Russell Pasha ga^e a list of ten Bulgarian factories and laboratories known by him to be producing, heroin, illicitly, together 'with thfir approximate output and situation. Their estimated output for tho present year, he added, would be not less than twice the annual medical requirements of the world. It was nlleeed that some*, of these factories had been sunplied by the. Bank of Macedonia, which had bought all the opium in tlie market. • ' . THE MASTER MIND. Russell Pasha added that one of the best-known traffickers, a Jew, who had to leave Bulgaria, nowadays spent his time in Bucharest awaiting the opportunity of returning to Sofia, while his wife lived in-Sofia and travelled backwards and forwards between Bucharest and Sofia. A Tartar of Turkish origin, who was deported from Bulsaria last year, had now obtained permission to return. Ho was the master mind, and had probably the best internari6nal smuggling organisation in Europo. - ' ,| M. Mikoff, the Bulgarian Charge j d'Affaires at Geneva, expressed regret that owinjr to recent events it had not been possible for his Government to meet his request for the presence at that meeting of a person competent to deal with the subject. M. Mikoff gave n formal assurance that the Bulgarian Government would conform more strictly in future to its international obligations in tho campaign against narcotics. ,