A British company is recruiting farmers to cultivate opium to meet the growing demand for diamorphine in hospitals across the country.

The news comes as troops contine to struggle to contain the opium industry in Afghanistan. Figures due to be released by the United Nations next month are expected to show that the poppy crop has reached a record level. They are expected to show an increase in cultivated area to 166,000 hectares (410,000 acres).

Britain has spent £290 million on its counter-narcotics campaign in the country and is planning to spend an extra £22.5 million next year.

Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, conceded this month that opium production was rising but said that successes were being made in other aspects of Afghan life.

In Britain, 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of land has already been planted in the hope of making Britain self-sufficient in diamorphine and guaranteeing a supply should a flu pandemic put an impossible strain on drug manufacturers.

Diamorphine is commonly used to relieve the pain caused by heart attack, injury, surgery and cancers.

The poppies are being produced legally – at undisclosed locations on farms in central and northern England – for processing in Britain by Macfarlan Smith, the Edinburgh-based pharmaceutical division of Johnson Matthey, the FTSE 100 company.

Macfarlan Smith, which is the world’s largest legal manufacturer of the drug, has signed contracts with at least two British farms to ensure a regular supply.

The possibility of buying opium from Afghan farmers, who illegally grow poppies, to meet the demand for diamorphine has been raised in the past. However, with the illegal Afghan crop providing 90 per cent of the hero-in trade in Britain alone, the possibility of medical uses for it has never been viewed as practical or realistic.

There is already enough legal opium on the market to cater for medical requirements. Nevertheless, Macfarlan Smith says that it is still dedicated to expanding British poppy production. All crops have to be authorised by the Home Office.

On its website, Macfarlan Smith says: “If you are interested in growing poppies you must have free-draining soil, have a pH [a measure of acidity] over seven and have on-floor drying system.”

The area under cultivation with opium poppy, or Papaver somniferum, in the UK has been expanded from only 428 hectares in 2002, according to figures from the International Narcotics Control Board.

David Mercer, managing director of Macfarlan Smith, said that the first opium poppies were planted in Britain with government approval four years ago. He said that a small but growing proportion of the 200 to 300 kilograms of diamorphine consumed legally as a painkiller in British hospitals every year was now being produced domestically.

He said: “The introduction of production in the UK was to maintain the reliability of supply.”

The raw materials for producing diamorphine have traditionally been imported to Britain from places such as India and Tasmania.

France has more than 6,000 hectares, Hungary has 13,000 hectares and Turkey has 70,000 hectares, according to the International Narcotics Control Board.

Mr Mercer said that problems had arisen in recent years regarding diamorphine production in Britain because of a squeeze on manufacturing capacity associated with concerns about an outbreak of pandemic flu. The same manufacturing plants that are used to make ampoules of diamorphine have been prioritised for producing flu vaccines.

Macfarlan Smith, which controls about one third of the legitimate global trade in diamorphine, has been producing it for medical use for more than 100 years.

In 2005 the Department of Health cautioned that NHS supplies of diamorphine remained low and advised health professionals to prescribe morphine, keeping any diamorphine for use in palliative care. The shortage of the drug first came to light at the end of December 2004.

Diamorphine hydrochloride belongs to a group of medicines that are called opioids. These mimic the effects of naturally occurring pain-reducing chemicals (endorphins), which combine with the opioid receptors in the brain and block the transmission of pain signals. Therefore, even though the cause of the pain may remain, less pain is actually felt.

War against opium in Afghanistan

Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has risen by 15 per cent since 2006 Almost 32,400 extra hectares (80,000 acres) of poppies are expected to be cultivated this year

Three quarters of the world’s opium poppies are grown there

The failure to halt the trade is one of the factors fuelling violence in southern Afghanistan

British troops have died trying to disrupt the soaring opium harvest

Last year farmers cultivated 165,000 hectares of poppies -enough to make more heroin than the world’s addicts use

British troops have eradicated 26,000 hectares of poppies this year

Source: UN

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