DEVELOPMENT: Afghanistan’s drug menace —Syed Mohammad Ali

[fatman17]

DEVELOPMENT: Afghanistan’s drug menace —Syed Mohammad Ali

Now that a major security operation is being undertaken in the region, an attempt must also be made to focus on simultaneous eradication efforts to ensure that FATA’s role in the processing or even cultivation of opiates is effectively curbed

The lingering turmoil in Afghanistan has created conditions within the past eight or so years that have propelled Afghanistan to the top of the list of the world’s largest producers of illicit opiates. In terms of the size of its annual opiate production, only Myanmar in Southeast Asia is now said to offer any serious competition to Afghanistan.

International narcotics control agencies point out that the global supply of raw opium is currently three times that of the heroin being consumed annually. This in turn implies the existence of an unaccounted stockpile of thousands of tonnes of opium, which is either being stored in Afghanistan itself, or are is being kept within transit and destination countries. This surplus opium can ultimately be either turned into heroin, or consumed in its existing form, even if the supply line from Afghanistan gets disrupted.

It has been calculated that Afghani farmers have collectively earned over $6 billion from poppy cultivation between 2002 and 2008. Afghan traffickers, on the other hand, have made almost $18 billion from opiate processing and trading within the country. Moreover, the combined global heroin and opium market is worth some $65 billion per year, and most of the remaining money is pocketed by criminal gangs operating beyond Afghanistan. As a consequence of this lucrative illicit trade, a lethal combination of drugs, crime and insurgency is now said to have infested the famous ancient Silk Route.

Countries such as Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are not only the main trafficking routes for Afghan heroin into Russia, they also have domestic markets. Research by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) illustrates how the Afghan opiate trade has increased consumption and addiction in several of the above mentioned Central Asian countries, which are situated along the drug trafficking routes, before even reaching the main consumer markets in Europe. In Iran, about 14 tonnes of Afghan heroin and another 450 tonnes of opium were consumed locally in 2008 alone, the report said, making it the world’s biggest consumer of the drug. Iran now seems to be facing the world’s most serious opiate addiction problem.

Even Europe itself has an estimated 3.1 million heroin users, a fact which has unleashed growing social and health problems, such as contributing to the further spread of HIV/AIDS and other blood-borne diseases among this growing number of addicts.

UNODC’s latest report further draws attention to the transnational threat of this illegal Afghan drugs trade, as it is providing a financial base not only to Afghan militants but also to those in Central Asia and to those in the tribal areas of Pakistan, which is another dangerous trend that could further destabilise the whole area.

Most of the processing of Afghan opium was suspected to take place in small, mobile laboratories in the Afghan-Pakistan border areas, but now increasing instances of processing on the Afghan border with the Central Asian republics is being reported.

Afghanistan itself is now heavily dependent on its illegal drugs economy. While accurate estimates on the extent of drug addiction within Afghanistan are not available, the fact that this is a serious problem cannot be disputed. Drug abuse is rampant in the Afghan refugee population in Pakistan, in the Afghan province of Badakhshan, among returning refugees in Kabul and among the Turkmen tribes of North Afghanistan.

There is ample evidence of the adverse impact of the ongoing ‘war against terror’ on the drug situation in Afghanistan. The former US administration headed by George W Bush faced charges at a Senate hearing in May 2003 that it was in fact allowing Afghan drug production to grow, despite reports that the Taliban had successfully managed to curb this particular menace considerably during their time in power. Critics blame the US for having ignored the incredible increase in Afghan opium production, either because of their inability to control the countryside, or perhaps because the US did not want to undermine regional warlords who profit from the trade and were fighting America’s proxy war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Many of these warlords who are implicated in the drug trade now hold powerful offices as well, therefore undermining the resolve of the Afghan government to address this problem.

According to an insightful book of this topic, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, heroin trafficking in Afghanistan is directly considered the result of the two CIA covert wars fought there, the first during 1979-89 and the other since 2001.

Conversely, opium does also seem an ideal crop for an Afghani farmer as it is not capital intensive and needs little water in a country with an arid climate.

However, just like Afghanistan, Turkey had a long tradition of poppy cultivation. Just like Afghanistan, Turkey worried that poppy eradication could bring down the government during the era of the ‘Midnight Express’, when Turkey was the main source of the heroin sold in the West. A ban was tried, and it failed in Turkey.

As a result, in 1974, the Turks, with US and UN support, tried a different tactic. They began licensing poppy cultivation for the purpose of producing morphine, codeine, and other legal opiates. Legal factories were built to replace the illegal ones. Poor farmers registered to grow poppies, and they paid taxes. US drug companies purchase 80 percent of their narcotic raw materials used for pharmaceutical purposes from Turkey and from India. Why Afghanistan cannot be to added to this list remains a legitimate question, which many concerned stakeholders have now begun to ask.

Perhaps the only arguments against doing so is that the weak or nonexistent bureaucracy will be no better at licensing poppy fields than at destroying them, or that some of the raw material will still fall into the hands of the drug cartels. But even if such an initiative succeeds in stopping half the drug trade, a huge chunk of Afghanistan’s economy will have emerged from the grey market, and the power of the drug barons will undoubtedly be reduced. So there seems no real excuse for any further delay.

The Afghan drug problem has had serious implications for Pakistan as well, since the 1980s. The latest surge in the Afghan drug trade also led to a spike in the illicit transit, and use of these drugs in major cities of Pakistan. Moreover, like in Afghanistan, it is feared that the Pakistani insurgents have also begun to levy taxes on the opiate trade along the border regions. The most problematic areas in terms of poppy cultivation within Pakistan are largely concentrated in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Now that a major security operation is being undertaken in the region, an attempt must also be made to focus on simultaneous eradication efforts to ensure that FATA’s role in the processing or even cultivation of opiates is effectively curbed. Incoming funds, such as the USAID’s FATA Sustainable Development Plan can be used to ensure incentives to help eradicate this problem from the tribal areas, so that this re-emergent drug menace can be tacked once and for all.

The writer is a researcher. He can be contacted at ali@policy.hu

 

[S-2]

I note two errors that I find impinge this author's credibility.

Opium isn't capital-intensive but it IS labor-intensive. One of two attactions to a slight shift in drug cultivation to Cannabis is the absence of labor-intensive work. The second, btw, is the relatively little law enforcement emphasis against cannabis relative to opium.

"...it was in fact allowing Afghan drug production to grow, despite reports that the Taliban had successfully managed to curb this particular menace considerably during their time in power."

Had Syed Mohammad Ali fully read the UNODC report, he'd have noted the increase in opium production in Afghanistan from 1996 when the taliban came to power to 1999 when new world records for cultivation were established. It wasn't, literally, until 2001 that production was dramatically reduced with the institution of very draconian measures for very transparently obvious reasons of seeking foreign acceptability by the taliban government.

Until then, the taliban were fine with cultivation and the data shows exactly that.

Of course, were the west to implement the same draconian measures to curb opium cultivation, the outcry from all corners would be overwhelming.

I hope that Mr. Ali will note that for the second consecutive year, opium cultivation is down on a per hectare basis within Afghanistan. There are considerable gains being made even if such gains might, like anything in Afghanistan be quickly reversible. Sadly, some is due, I suspect, to a desire to hold prices firm with stockpiled opium and also better yields per hectare in some areas that help to offset the overall reduction.