Off the highway connecting Cairo to the coastal city of Alexandria, drug users go to meet their dealers away from the prying eyes of authorities.

Yasmine*, a 26-year-old recovering heroin addict, used to drive almost halfway to Alexandria whenever she needed her fix.
(*The names of drug dealers and users have been changed to protect their identities.)

“It was hard being one of the very few girls scoring drugs. But what choice did I have? It’s harder to get caught in the middle of the desert, away from Cairo authorities,” says the American University in Cairo (AUC) dropout.  

Hassan, a 25-year-old recovering heroin and cocaine addict, used to make the 40-kilometer drive every day.

“Every time I’ve been, there were about 10 or 15 cars parked. People would stay there, high off their last hit, before they drove back to the city. It gave me a sense of desensitization. I felt like I wasn’t alone,” says Hassan, who studied engineering in Germany but chose to come back to Egypt because the drugs were cheaper. “Drugs are expensive in Europe. Sometimes I took the train to Holland to get the drugs from there, but it was too hectic to keep up with.”

Hassan got hooked on drugs after experimenting with hashish, opium and Ecstasy. When a friend gave him cocaine, he said he felt like he “had the world wrapped around his finger.”

After using cocaine for a while, Hassan tried heroin, which quickly became his drug of choice.

Drugged culture
With uprisings gripping the Middle East and North Africa, the region has become more inviting as an investment and transit hub for the illegal drug trade. Egypt, with its 82 million plus population and centric geographic location, has over 6 million drug users, according to governmental statistics. Greater access and more drugs to choose from, thanks in part to the nation’s unstable and fluid security situation, means that number is sure to continue rising. Rampant poverty and unemployment also make narcotics an attractive prospect for users and dealers alike.

Egypt’s government and NGOs are doing their best to combat the spread of illegal drugs, but they are only able to confiscate a tenth of what comes into the country or is produced domestically.

“After the January 25 Revolution, getting drugs into the country became easier because of the opening of the borders,” says Faisal Hegazy, a program officer at the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Cairo Office. “We now import more drugs from three borders: Libya, Sudan and the Rafah and Gaza borders. We [are] also getting more heroin from Jordan lately.”

Illicit drug imports from Libya have also increased since its uprising began six months ago, joining the likes of Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Sudan — other countries drug traffickers target because of their fluid security situations and porous borders.

Egypt’s geographic location makes it an important transit point for drug trafficking and a popular gateway to European markets. Its many ports are now considered hubs for this growing trade. It has also become common for freight liners working in the drug industry to throw cargo overboard for fishermen to pick up along the northern Mediterranean coast or Suez, according to experts.

“Egypt is a major transshipment point for heroin destined for Western Europe and, to a lesser extent, North America. Egypt’s long, barren borders and numerous entry points, including Cairo International Airport and the Suez Canal, provide natural cover for the transshipment of heroin and opium moving from Asia to Europe and, in less significant quantities, North America,” states the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) by the US Department of State. Middle Eastern and Arab countries such as Israel, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Turkey and Morocco also use Egypt as a port of call for drug trafficking.

Tracing Egypt’s drugs of choice
Egypt is the most populous country in the Arab world, so naturally it has the largest number of drug users. According to Hegazy, the drugs of choice for Egyptians include bango (a type of locally cultivated cannabis), hashish (cannabis), amphetamines and heroin. Bango and hashish are the most popular because lower-income earners have access to them, whereas cocaine and other chemical drugs like Ecstasy and LSD (acid) are used among higher-wage earners.

In 2010, the Egyptian People’s Assembly estimated that there were seven million hashish users in Egypt, making it Egypt’s most popular drug.

According to the US State Department report, “Cannabis is grown year round in the northern and southern Sinai and in Upper Egypt, while [the] opium poppy is grown in the southern Sinai only from November through March. Rugged terrain means that plots of illegal crops are small and irregularly shaped.”

The report continues to say that, within Egypt, the Sinai region “is the most prominent area for the cultivation of opium poppy and cannabis,” and that eradication efforts have not fully been able to cut down on opium poppy and cannabis cultivation.

Most of Egypt’s imported hashish comes from Morocco or Lebanon, while the majority of heroin is from Afghanistan, which produces approximately 680 tons a year.

The opium poppy seed is planted and produced in labs there, then is shipped west to Iran, where labs turn the opium into heroin. Some 70% of the heroin goes to Europe; the remaining 30% makes its way to Africa and the Gulf countries. (Egypt gets its heroin primarily from neighboring Saudi Arabia and other African countries. According to the 2011 UN Drug Report, Egypt confiscated 220 kilograms of heroin last year.

“The number one reason for women being in prison in Egypt is hashish.”

The nation’s growing supply of cocaine comes from South America. Europe gets approximately 60% of the total, while the US gets the rest.

Egypt receives its supply from Nigeria, which gets shipments from Europe. From Egypt, cocaine then makes its way up through Asia.

 Like heroin, cocaine’s popularity has risen in recent years. “It’s obvious that the Egyptian market has been heavily penetrated because cocaine is now in government drug reports. In 2010, they seized 5.5 kilograms. If we do the underground math associated with drugs, this means there was about 50 kilograms of cocaine in the country,” says Hegazy. “In 2009, Egypt witnessed its largest cocaine drug bust, which was 57 kilograms. If you do the math again, you can tell that the organized drug mafias were trying to stimulate the Egyptian market, and they succeeded.”

Alternative types of drugs got their boost in the Egyptian market after 2010’s much-publicized hashish shortage, which sent prices of the drug soaring.

“A gram of heroin or cocaine costs a little more than a coin of hashish, which makes these drugs a lot more accessible and affordable for people of all classes,” says Mohamed, a dealer who works mainly with these three drugs.

Some even claim the shortage was one of the revolution’s drivers.

“One of the contributing factors to our revolution was the government clampdown on drugs in 2010. People were no longer numb to what was happening to the country. They were also angry because the prices of drugs were rising. It’s known that governments gain from the fact that their people are on drugs,” says Said Sadek, a professor of political sociology at the AUC.

“Hashish use is widespread, and the police let it slide. Of course the police and government are trying to control the problem, but with the way things are right now, everything goes. But even before the revolution, for that much smuggling, trafficking and trading to be going on in the country means there must be corruption in the government. These traffickers have to go through customs. If some of the big dealers offer a customs officer LE 10 million to let him through, will he not take it?”

“After the January 25 Revolution, getting drugs into the country became easier because of the opening of the borders.”

Growing profits
There are many reasons people choose to take drugs, but there is only one reason for producing and selling them: profit. According to a 2003 study conducted by the Egyptian government, the drug industry was worth $800 million (LE 4.78 billion) annually. This figure includes money spent on buying drugs, trafficking them and government efforts to combat them.

In 2011, drug industry profits are estimated to be as high as Egypt’s yearly income from the Suez Canal, tourism and petrol combined, according to Sadek. “With only 10% of drugs seized, the remaining 90% are dealt on a yearly basis. That’s a huge industry.”

In economic terms, drugs are considered consumer goods. According to the UN International World Drug Report, drugs are traded in the marketplace, making them subject to the laws of supply and demand, “but only in the illicit drug industry can seizures of between 10% and 30% of production, the forfeiture of a [small] percentage of financial and other assets and the loss, through death or imprisonment, of a percentage of operatives, impose merely an imperceptible or short-term impact on retail price and still allow large net profit at every stage of the distribution chain.”

Institutions combating drugs compare the drug industry with agriculture. “The drug industry is similar to the agriculture one, with crop cultivation on lands and harvested products sold in the marketplace to clients,” states the UN world report. But unlike normal agriculture products, the demand for drugs is influenced by their addictive nature, making it a huge industry with high profit margins.

Hegazy says the drug industry in Egypt could be worth $2 billion (LE 11.96 billion) a year, “but we can’t prove it. It’s only an estimate because no one really researched it. Worldwide it can reach up to $1 trillion or $2 trillion (LE 5.98 trillion to LE 11.96 trillion). It’s a big industry all over the world. But what I can say for sure is that the trafficking of the drugs is sophisticated and well thought through.”

The UN estimates the global drug trade is worth an estimated $400 billion (LE 2.39 trillion), which is equivalent to approximately 8% of the world’s international trade. And that estimate was made ten years ago. What the figure is right now is still unclear as of press time.

Most drug operations are global and are run by organized crime syndicates. Estimates report 60% of the world’s organized crime activities involve drugs, say experts. They are so effective because they have enormous profit margins and are run like businesses, according to Hegazy.

“Organized crime is run exactly like a global company, with a research department to study markets, a finance department, a marketing department and all the departments found in any international organization. They have billions to spend through both drug and weapon trafficking activities. They set the prices for the world market, depending on the risks taken,” says Hegazy. “If you look at the routes that traffic drugs to Egypt, you will find that they are really long. Therefore, drugs may be more expensive here than those en route to the US, for example.

The risk is related to the distance, and in the end, it’s all determined by the organized crime mafias dealing the drugs.”

Sadek echoes Hegazy. “The drug industry is usually managed by organized crime mafias. You need to be in contact with them in other countries to traffic the drugs. The people who traffic weapons between Gaza and Egypt are [...] the same as the ones who traffic drugs. It’s all about trafficking. It’s not important what it is, hashish, humans or weapons,” he says. “It’s the same with Sinai and Israel — they trade and traffic drugs according to tastes on both sides of the border. It’s surprising how Israel and Egypt politically don’t look eye-to-eye with the amount of drug trafficking that goes on between them. But it’s business at the end of the day, so nothing else matters.”

In Egypt, producers are family businesses or tribes that form their distribution networks. Women are also a major part of the Egyptian drug trade, due to family ties and financial dependence. Most Egyptian women in prison are convicted on drug charges.

“The number one reason for women being in prison in Egypt is hashish. They are used as covers because preconceived thought here in Egypt wouldn’t make you suspicious of women dealing drugs,” says Sadek. “You’ll also find dealing and trafficking going on behind covers, for example, the shops in downtown Cairo. They’re set up as shoe stores, but they also deal with money laundering for drug trafficking.”

Egypt’s ineffective war on drugs
The Egyptian government is working hard to combat the supply of drugs coming into or through the country with the help of the Anti-Narcotic General Administration (ANGA). Part of the Ministry of Interior, ANGA was established in 1929, making it the oldest drug-control agency in the world. It has branch offices in all major cities, airports and ports.

Lieutenant Colonel Khaled Shanan spent most of his career combating drugs as a commanding officer at ANGA. He has since moved on, but still believes in their efforts to combat drug trafficking.

“In recent years, there has been a major clampdown on drug smuggling around the world. And since this is a business like any other, when one supply line is cut, dealers look for another. Since then, the amount of drugs being grown in the country has grown,” says Shanan.

Working closely with central security forces, the armed forces and numerous ministries, ANGA’s goal is to discover drug production facilities and farms, arrest those who cultivate drugs, seize stored bango as well as keep an eye on smuggling routes in Sinai and other governorates.

But it seems drug suppliers, traffickers, dealers and users not only outnumber ANGA officers, they are also able to get past ANGA’s with so many distribution options to choose from.

“The ANGA is one of the best drug departments in the Arab world. They are doing their best. Their resistance can only combat 1 kilogram out of every 4 kilograms in physical power. Drugs are trafficked through the airport, ships, the Suez Canal and the different borders. Ships throw them in the sea because there isn’t much security there. The drugs come in from everywhere, it’s difficult for them to keep up,” says Hegazy.

Shanan admits that one of the biggest problems ANGA has to deal with is the eradication of the bango crops in Sinai. “We don’t plant a lot of drugs here because they need specific weather conditions. But ANGA officers are always on the lookout in Sinai, scanning fields and burning the produce when found,” he says.

Comfortably numb
The aims of drug trafficking organizations, according to the UN report, are to expand in influence, develop new support systems and establish new markets. “The flexibility of the illicit drug industry derives from the capacity of the drug trafficking organizations to constantly improve technology at their disposal in terms of production, storing and smuggling strategies.”

But newcomers to the industry are usually looking to make some fast cash. If they get away with it and get lucky, they could make millions. If they don’t, “they don’t really care because they feel like they were living like the dead anyway,” says Sadek. “Human motivations to take drugs are high; you’ll find people in rich economies like the US and Europe using and people in poor economies like Somalia and Afghanistan using.”

So why do so many people do drugs? Some take drugs for pleasure, others to celebrate, but most use them as a form of escapism from unemployment, poverty and stress.

Cuffed to their beds at the Cairo Rehab Center, Yasmine and Hassan talked about the emptiness of quitting. They wake up drenched in sweat in the middle of the night. Other symptoms that drug addicts experience while withdrawing include nausea, constipation, headaches, itching and uncontrollable shaking. Perhaps the hardest thing to deal with is the emotional emptiness.

“Cocaine gave me confidence and heroin made me feel like I could achieve anything. I don’t know how to physically function without them,” says Hassan, describing his drug rush as a pervasive, warm and pleasurable feeling.

But the sensation is temporary and comes at a price.

“If I don’t take it, I’ll spend the whole day aching and sweating in bed. That’s why, sometimes, I’ll increase my next dose to avoid the pain that comes with withdrawal [...] besides, it’s not like I have to travel that far to obtain my supply anyway,” adds Hassan. bt

— Additional reporting by Ragia Mostafa