CONFIDENT I AL
DRAFT PRESS RELEASE
DRAFT
3 June 1975 MCM/j-ah
TURKISH GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCES SCALE OF PRICES AT WHICH IT WILL BUY FROM FARMERS THDIR HARVEST OF OPIUM POPPY CAPSULES
June 1975 the prices at
The Government of Turkey announced on which it will buy from licensed opium poppy farmers their 1975 harvest of unlanced poppy capsules. The range of prices is expected to result in a mean price to farmers of TL18 per kg. This decision, and its public announcement, is welcomed by the United Nations, which has fully discussed this question with officials of the Government.
The United Nations considers that it has been necessary to fix and announce in advance of the period when it is technically possible to lance capsules a buying price which will ensure that the farmer is reassured that he will not lose financially by the change to the new method of producing narcotics raw materials required for medicinal purposes and that he becomes a willing partner in the control system. Thus the temptation to evasion is lessened and the problem of control further diminished.
the opinion of the United Nations the buying price announced by the Government is satisfactorily adequate for this purpose.
In
It will be recalled that Government decrees have made the cultivation
of the opium poppy subject to a licensing and inspection system, to the prohibition of the lancing of the poppy capsules and so of the production of opium, and to the nomination of a government agency (the Soil Products Office) as the sole legal buyer and dealer in poppy capsules. The farmers will however be permitted to retain the plants' seed (which does not contain opium) and stalks. These decisions should result in the production of
narcotics raw materials by a safer way, and so make the task of the control
authorities simpler and less difficult and very greatly reduce the risk
of illicit trafficking in opium, morphine, or heroin from Turkey. The
Government has re-iterated the determination expressed by the Prime Minister
last July "to adopt the most effective measures to ensure that this decision to resume poppy cultivation will not cause even the smallest
harm to humankind”.
See press releasee SOC/NAR 213 of 8 October 1974 and SOC/NAR 217 of 23 January 1975.
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