Opium production in Afghanistan - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

has been the greatest illicit opium

Opium

Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...

producer in the entire world, ahead of Burma (Myanmar) and the "Golden Triangle

Golden Triangle (Southeast Asia)

The Golden Triangle is one of Asia's two main illicit opium-producing areas. It is an area of around that overlaps the mountains of four countries of Southeast Asia: Burma, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. Along with Afghanistan in the Golden Crescent and Pakistan, it has been one of the most...

" since 1992, excluding the year 2001. Afghanistan is the main producer of opium in the "Golden Crescent

Golden Crescent

The Golden Crescent is the name given to one of Asia's two principal areas of illicit opium production, located at the crossroads of Central, South, and Western Asia...

". Opium production in Afghanistan has been on the rise since U.S. occupation started in 2001. Based on UNODC data, there has been more opium poppy cultivation in each of the past four growing seasons (2004–2007) than in any one year during Taliban rule. Also, more land is now used for opium in Afghanistan than for coca cultivation in Latin America. In 2007, 92% of the non-pharmaceutical-grade opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan. This amounts to an export value of about $4 billion, with a quarter being earned by opium farmers and the rest going to district officials, insurgents, warlords, drug traffickers.
In the seven years (1994–2000) prior to a Taliban opium ban, the Afghan farmers' share of gross income from opium was divided among 200,000 families. In addition to opiate

Opiate

In medicine, the term opiate describes any of the narcotic opioid alkaloids found as natural products in the opium poppy plant.-Overview:Opiates are so named because they are constituents or derivatives of constituents found in opium, which is processed from the latex sap of the opium poppy,...

s, Afghanistan is also the largest producer of hashish

Hashish

Hashish is a cannabis preparation composed of compressed stalked resin glands, called trichomes, collected from the unfertilized buds of the cannabis plant. It contains the same active ingredients but in higher concentrations than unsifted buds or leaves...

in the world.

Soviet period (1979–1989)

As the Afghan government began to lose control of provinces during the Soviet invasion of 1979–80, warlord

Warlord

A warlord is a person with power who has both military and civil control over a subnational area due to armed forces loyal to the warlord and not to a central authority. The term can also mean one who espouses the ideal that war is necessary, and has the means and authority to engage in war...

s flourished and with it opium production as regional commanders searched for ways to generate money to purchase weapons, according to the UN. (At this time the US was pursuing an "arms-length" supporting strategy of the Afghan freedom-fighters or Mujahideen

Mujahideen

Mujahideen are Muslims who struggle in the path of God. The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad .Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as mujahedin, mujahedeen, mudžahedin, mudžahidin, mujahidīn, mujaheddīn and more.-Origin of the concept:The beginnings of Jihad are traced...

, the main purpose being to cripple the USSR slowly into withdrawal through attrition rather than effect a quick and decisive overthrow.)

In 1995 the former CIA Director of this Afghan operation, Mr. Charles Cogan, admitted sacrificing the drug war to fight the Cold War. "Our main mission was to do as much damage to the Soviets. We didn't really have the resources or the time to devote to an investigation of the drug trade," he told Australian television. "I don't think that we need to apologize for this. Every situation has its fallout. There was fallout in terms of drugs, yes, but the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan."

As explained by Zbigniew Brzezinski

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981....

The secret operation was an excellent idea. It drew the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? On the day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, saying, in essence: 'We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War.'

It was alleged by the Soviets on multiple occasions that American CIA agents were helping smuggle opium out of Afghanistan

Afghanistan

, either into the West, in order to raise money for the Afghan resistance or into the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

in order to weaken it through drug addiction. According to Alfred McCoy, the CIA supported various Afghan drug lords, for instance Gulbuddin Hekmatyar

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is an Afghan Mujahideen leader who is the founder and leader of the Hezb-e Islami political party and paramilitary group. Hekmatyar was a rebel military commander during the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan and was one of the key figures in the civil war that followed the...

and others such as Haji Ayub Afridi.

Warlord period (1989–1994)

When the Soviet Army was forced to withdraw in 1989, a power vacuum was created. Various Mujahideen factions started fighting against each other for power. With the discontinuation of Western support, they resorted ever more to poppy cultivation to finance their military existence.

Rise of the Taliban (1994–2001)

During the Taliban rule, Afghanistan saw a bumper opium crop of 4,500 metric tons in 1999,. However, in July 2000, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar

Mohammed Omar

Mullah Mohammed Omar , often simply called Mullah Omar, is the leader of the Taliban movement that operates in Afghanistan. He was Afghanistan's de facto head of state from 1996 to late 2001, under the official title "Head of the Supreme Council"...

, collaborating with the United Nations to eradicate heroin production in Afghanistan, declared that growing poppies was un-Islamic, resulting in one of the world's most successful anti-drug campaigns. As a result of this ban, opium poppy cultivation was reduced by 91% from the previous year's estimate of 82,172 hectares. The ban was so effective that Helmand Province, which had accounted for more than half of this area, recorded no poppy cultivation during the 2001 season.

Present War in Afghanistan

By November 2001, the collapse of the economy and the scarcity of other sources of revenue forced many of the country's farmers to resort back to growing opium for export.(1,300 km² in 2004 according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.)

In December 2001, a number of prominent Afghans met in Bonn, Germany, under United Nations (UN) auspices to develop a plan to reestablish the State of Afghanistan, including provisions for a new constitution and national elections. As part of that agreement, the United Kingdom (UK) was designated the lead country in addressing counter-narcotics issues in Afghanistan. Afghanistan subsequently implemented its new constitution and held national elections. On December 7, 2004, Hamid Karzai was formally sworn in as president of a democratic Afghanistan."

Two of the following three growing seasons saw record levels of opium poppy cultivation. Corrupt officials may have undermined the government's enforcement efforts. Afghan farmers suggested that "government officials take bribes for turning a blind eye to the drug trade while punishing poor opium growers".

Another obstacle to getting rid of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is the reluctant collaboration between US forces and Afghan warlords in hunting drug traffickers. In the absence of Taliban, the warlords largely control the opium trade but are also highly useful to the US forces in scouting, providing local intelligence, keeping their own territories clean from Al-Qaeda and Taliban insurgents, and even taking part in military operations.

Former U.S. State Department Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Thomas Schweich

Tom Schweich

Thomas A. "Tom" Schweich is an American politician and lawyer who has served as Coordinator for Counternarcotics and Justice Reform in Afghanistan. While in that position, he was given the rank of Ambassador by U.S. President George W. Bush. In the 2010 election in Missouri, Schweich won the race...

, in a New York Times article dated July 27, 2007, asserts that opium production is protected by the government of Hamid Karzai

Hamid Karzai

Hamid Karzai, GCMG is the 12th and current President of Afghanistan, taking office on 7 December 2004. He became a dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001...

as well as by the Taliban, as all parties to political conflict in Afghanistan as well as criminals benefit from opium production, and, in Schweich's opinion, the U.S. military turns a blind eye to opium production as not being central to its anti-terrorism mission.
In March 2010, NATO rejected Russian proposals for Afghan poppy spraying, citing concerns over income of Afghan people. There have also been allegations of American and European involvement in Afghanistan's drug trafficking with links to Taliban.

On October 28, 2010 agents of Russia’s Federal Service for the Control of Narcotics joined Afghan and American antidrug forces in an operation to destroy a major drug production site near Jalalabad

Jalalabad

Jalalabad , formerly called Adinapour, as documented by the 7th century Hsüan-tsang, is a city in eastern Afghanistan. Located at the junction of the Kabul River and Kunar River near the Laghman valley, Jalalabad is the capital of Nangarhar province. It is linked by approximately of highway with...

. In the operation 932 kg (2,055 lb) of high quality heroin and 156 kg (345 lb) of opium, with a street value of US$ 250 million, and a large amount of technical equipment was destroyed. This was the first anti-drug operation to include Russian agents. According Viktor Ivanov, Director of Russia’s Federal Service for the Control of Narcotics, this marks an advance in relations between Moscow and Washington. Afghan President Hamid Karzai

Hamid Karzai

Hamid Karzai, GCMG is the 12th and current President of Afghanistan, taking office on 7 December 2004. He became a dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001...

called the operation a violation of Afghan sovereignty and international law.

Foreign Involvement

Approximately 40,000 foreign troops help manage security in Afghanistan, principally of 32,000 regular soldiers from 37 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces: the International Security Assistance Force

International Security Assistance Force

The International Security Assistance Force is a NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan established by the United Nations Security Council on 20 December 2001 by Resolution 1386 as envisaged by the Bonn Agreement...

. 8,000 US and other special operations forces make up the balance. There is significant resistance, both from the ideological/theocratic Taliban, especially in southern Afghanistan, and also independent local warlords and drug organizations. Antonio Maria Costa

Antonio Maria Costa

Antonio Maria Costa was an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, appointed, from May 2002 until August 2010, to the positions of Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and Director-General of the United Nations Office in Vienna .-Background:An Italian native,...

, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime is a United Nations agency that was established in 1997 as the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention by combining the United Nations International Drug Control Program and the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Division in the United Nations...

(UNODC), described the situation this way: "There is no rule of law in most of the southern parts of Afghanistan—the bullets rule."

Production and distribution regions

The following areas of Afghanistan play a role in the drug traffic:

Production

"Southern region" of Helmand and Kandahar
Kandahar
Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 512,200 as of 2011. It is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at about 1,005 m above sea level...

provinces, on the border with Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, which are the highest-volume areas for drug transactions. There is a traditional route from Helmand, through Pakistan, to Iran

Smuggling

Herat
Herat
Herāt is the capital of Herat province in Afghanistan. It is the third largest city of Afghanistan, with a population of about 397,456 as of 2006. It is situated in the valley of the Hari River, which flows from the mountains of central Afghanistan to the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan...

, in Herat Province, the Northern Alliance stronghold, which borders Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
Faizabad
Fayzabad, Badakhshan
See also: Faizabad Fayzabad is the provincial capital and largest city in Badakhshan Province, in northern Afghanistan, with around 50,000 people. It is situated in Fayzabad District and is at an altitude of 1,200 m. It is located in the northeast of Afghanistan, on the River Kokcha...

, in Badakhshan
Badakhshan
Badakhshan is an historic region comprising parts of what is now northeastern Afghanistan and southeastern Tajikistan. The name is retained in Badakhshan Province which is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, in the far northeast of Afghanistan, and contains the Wakhan Corridor...

province, which has borders with Tajikstan, Pakistan, and China.

Drug trafficking and impact around the world

According to EU agencies, Afghanistan has been Europe’s main heroin supplier for more than 10 years. Heroin enters Europe primarily by two major land routes: the long-standing ‘Balkan route’ through Turkey; and, since the mid-1990s, the ‘northern route’, which leaves northern Afghanistan through Central Asia and on to Russia (and is sometimes colloquially referred to as the ‘silk route’). Estimated number of problem opioids users in EU: 1.5 million (1.3–1.7 million), average prevalence between 4 and 5 cases per 1,000 adult population (aged 15–64). In 2005 there were around 7,000 acute drug deaths, with opioids being found in around 70 % of them. There was a minimum of 49,000 seizures resulting in the interception of an estimated 19.4 tonnes of heroin. Countries reporting the largest number of seizures (descending order): UK (2005), Spain, Germany, Greece, France. Countries reporting the largest quantities of heroin seized in 2005 (descending order): Turkey, UK, Italy, France, the Netherlands.

In 2010, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

accused United States of supporting the opium production in Afghanistan. Presently with resurgence of high output production of opium and heroin in post-Taliban Afghanistan, there is an ongoing heroin addiction epidemic in Russia which is claiming 30,000 lives each year, mostly among young people. There were two and half million heroin addicts in Russia by 2009.

Medical production

The Senlis Council has proposed legalizing opium production for medical purposes. Opium can be manufactured into codeine

Codeine

Codeine or 3-methylmorphine is an opiate used for its analgesic, antitussive, and antidiarrheal properties...

and morphine

Morphine

Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...

, both legal pain-killers. They reason that this will not only solve the problem of illicit opium production in Afghanistan, but that it will also lower the price of prescription drugs worldwide, making healthcare more affordable for those requiring morphine or codeine.

Others have argued that legalizing opium production would neither solve the problem nor would it be workable in practice. They argue that illegal diversion of the crop could only be minimised if the Afghans had the necessary resources, institutional capacity and control mechanisms in place to ensure that they were the sole purchaser of opiate raw materials. For them, there is currently no infrastructure in place to set up and administer such a scheme. They reason that in the absence of an effective control system, traffickers would be free to continue to exploit the market and there would be a high risk that licit cultivation would be used for illegal purposes and that the Afghan government would be in direct competition with the traffickers, thereby driving up the price of opium, and attracting more farmers to cultivate. The Afghan government has ruled out licit cultivation as a means of tackling the illegal drug trade: however in Turkey in the 1970s, legalising opium production, with US support brought illicit trafficking under control within four years. Afghan villages have strong local control systems based around the village shura

Shura

Shura is an Arabic word for "consultation". The Quran and Muhammad encourage Muslims to decide their affairs in consultation with those who will be affected by that decision....

, which with the support of the Afghan government and its international allies, could provide the basis for an effective control system. This idea is developed in the recent Senlis Council report "Poppy for Medicine" which proposes a technical model for the implementation of poppy licensing and the legal control of cultivation and production of Afghan morphine.

Some believe that there is also little evidence to show that Afghan opium would be economically competitive in a global market place. Australia, France, India, Spain, and Turkey currently dominate the export market for licit opiates. Due to the high cost of production in countries where cultivation is undertaken on small landholdings, such as India and Turkey, licit production requires market support (the production costs for the equivalent of 1 kg of morphine in 1999 was US$56 in Australia, US$159.77 in India and US$250 in Turkey). The current cost of production of one kilogramme of morphine equivalent in Afghanistan is approximately US$450. However, a poppy for medicine project in Afghanistan

Afghanistan

could provide a cheap pain relief option for pain sufferers who find morphine prices extremely elevated

The price of illicit opium far exceeds that of licit, (in India, in 2000, the price for licit opium was US$13–29 per kilo, but for illicit US$155–206). Although there are many complex reasons behind the decision to grow poppy, one of them is the current economic dependence of poppy farmers on the illicit trade. Whilst traffickers continue to be free to exploit the illicit market, legalisation would not change this. Demand for illicit opiates would not disappear even if Afghan opium were used for licit purposes and a vacuum would open that traffickers could exploit. However, currently 100% of Afghan opium is diverted to the illegal opium trade and funds in some cases terrorist activities. Despite eradication efforts since the international intervention in 2001, poppy cultivation and illicit opium production has increased, as UNODC figures show. A licensing system would bring farmers and villages into a supportive relationship with the Afghan government, instead of alienating the population by destroying their livelihood, and provide the economic diversification that could help cultivators break ties with the illicit opium trade.

The International Narcotics Control Board

International Narcotics Control Board

The International Narcotics Control Board is the independent and quasi-judicial control organ for the implementation of the United Nations drug conventions...

states that an over production in licit opiates since 2000 has led to stockpiles in producing countries 'that could cover demand for two years'. Thus, some say Afghan opium would contribute to an already oversupplied market and would potentially cause the supply and demand imbalance that the UN control system was designed. However, the World Health Organisation points out that there is an acute global shortage of poppy-based medicines such as morphine and codeine. This is largely due to chronic underprescription (especially in countries where morphine is extremely highly priced). The International Narcotics Control Board

International Narcotics Control Board

The International Narcotics Control Board is the independent and quasi-judicial control organ for the implementation of the United Nations drug conventions...

which regulates opium supply throughout the world enforces the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs

Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs

The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 is an international treaty to prohibit production and supply of specific drugs and of drugs with similar effects except under licence for specific purposes, such as medical treatment and research...

: this law provides that countries can only demand the raw poppy materials corresponding to the use of opium-based medicines over the last two years and thus limits countries who have low levels of prescription in terms of the amounts they can demand. As such, 77% of the world's opium supplies are being used by only six countries, leaving the rest of the world lacking in essential medicines such as morphine and codeine (See Fischer, B J. Rehm, and T Culbert, "Opium based medicines: a mapping of global supply, demand and needs" in
Spivack D. (ed.) Feasibility Study on Opium Licensing in Afghanistan, Kabul, 2005. p. 85–86. ). A second-tier supply system, that complements the current UN control system by supplying opium-based medicines to countries currently not receiving the poppy-based pain relief medicines needed, would maintain the balance established by the UN system and provide a market to Afghan-made poppy-based medicines.

Opium addiction within Afghan society

Afghanistan has seen a high rate of opium addiction among refugees returning from Iran and Pakistan. Afghan filmmaker Jawed Taiman in his film Addicted In Afghanistan attributes this to the presence of U.S. troops, claiming that opium addiction was significantly lower under Communist

Democratic Republic of Afghanistan

The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was a government of Afghanistan between 1978 and 1992. It was both ideologically close to and economically dependent on the Soviet Union, and was a major belligerent of the Afghan Civil War.- Saur Revolution :...

and Taliban rule.

The Afghan economy and opium

The 2004 United Nations Development Programme

United Nations Development Programme

The United Nations Development Programme is the United Nations' global development network. It advocates for change and connects countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. UNDP operates in 177 countries, working with nations on their own solutions to...

ranked Afghanistan number 173 of 177 countries, using a human development index, with Afghanistan near or at the bottom of virtually every development indicator including nutrition, infant mortality, life expectancy, and literacy. Several factors encourage opium production, the greatest being economic: the high rate of return on investment from opium poppy cultivation has driven an agricultural shift in Afghanistan from growing traditional crops to growing opium poppy.

Opium cultivation on this scale is not traditional. "Despite the fact that only 12 percent of its land is arable, agriculture is a way of life for 70 percent of Afghans and is the country's primary source of income. During good years, Afghanistan produced enough food to feed its people as well as supply a surplus for export. Its traditional agricultural products include wheat, corn, barley, rice, cotton, fruit, nuts, and grapes. However, its agricultural economy has suffered considerably […] Afghanistan's largest and fastest cash crop is opium."

Poppy Cultivation and the Opium Trade have been said to have had a more significant impact on the civilians in Afghanistan than the impact of wheat farming and livestock trading. As farmers in Afghanistan were once heavily reliant on wheat farming to make sufficient income, the development of poppy cultivation has given many of these farmers a boost in capital, even though the Opium Trade may be a more dangerous product to distribute. In addition, as the demand for Opium has elevated, women have more opportunity to work in the same setting as their male counterpart.

Afghanistan's rugged terrain encourages local autonomy, which, in some cases, means local leadership committed to an opium economy. The terrain makes surveillance and enforcement difficult.

Afghanistan's economy has thus evolved to the point where it is now highly dependent on opium. Although less than 4 percent of arable land in Afghanistan was used for opium poppy cultivation in 2006, revenue from the harvest brought in over $3 billion—more than 35 percent of the country's total gross national product (GNP). According to Antonio Costa, "Opium poppy cultivation, processing, and transport have become Afghanistan's top employers, its main source of capital, and the principal base of its economy." Today, a record 2.9 million Afghanis from 28 of 34 provinces are involved in opium cultivation in some way, which represents nearly 10 percent of the population. Although Afghanistan's overall economy is being boosted by opium profits, less than 20 percent of the $3 billion in opium profits actually goes to impoverished farmers, while more than 80 percent goes into the pockets of Afghan's opium traffickers and kingpins and their political connections. Even heftier profits are generated outside of Afghanistan by international drug traffickers and dealers.

Traditionally, processing of Afghan's opium into heroin has taken place outside of Afghanistan; however, in an effort to reap more profits internally, Afghan drug kingpins have stepped up heroin processing within their borders. Heroin processing labs have proliferated in Afghanistan since the late 1990s, particularly in the unstable southern region, further complicating stabilization efforts. With the reemergence of the Taliban and the virtual absence of the rule of law in the countryside, opium production and heroin processing have dramatically increased, especially in the southern province of Helmand.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

(UNODC) 2007 Afghanistan Opium Survey, Afghanistan produced approximately 8,200 metric tonnes of opium – nearly double the estimate of global annual consumption. In an April 25, 2007 op-ed in the Washington Post, Antonio Maria Costa

Antonio Maria Costa

, Executive Director of UNODC, asked "Does opium defy the laws of economics? Historically, no. In 2001, prices surged tenfold from 2000, to a record high, after the Taliban all but eliminated opium poppy cultivation across the Afghan territory under its control. So why, with last year's bumper crop, is the opposite not occurring? Early estimates suggest that opium cultivation is likely to increase again this year. That should be an added incentive to sell.

He speculated, "So where is it? I fear there may be a more sinister explanation for why the bottom has not fallen out of the opium market: major traffickers are withholding significant amounts.

"Drug traffickers have a symbiotic relationship with insurgents and terrorist groups such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Instability makes opium cultivation possible; opium buys protection and pays for weapons and foot soldiers, and these in turn create an environment in which drug lords, insurgents and terrorists can operate with impunity.

"Opium is the glue that holds this murky relationship together. If profits fall, these sinister forces have the most to lose. I suspect that the big traffickers are hoarding surplus opium as a hedge against future price shocks and as a source of funding for future terrorist attacks, in Afghanistan or elsewhere."

How the opium economy has influenced villagers options for generating income

Due to globalization and the development of trade, traditional ways of sustaining life for villagers has been forced to change. Before people relied on wheat farming and live stock whereas today poppy cultivation is the most prominent economic activity. This can be attributed due to higher profits from poppy cultivation and lack of opportunity for other farming practices due to land scarcity and more accessible loans from money providers for this activity.

War, economic instability, and poverty caused changes in the way villagers maintained their villages. Competition for scarce land and resources resulted in unsustainable practices, causing soil erosion and therefore making the land less productive. The cultivation of poppy, however, generated greater profits than wheat farming for the farming villagers due to the higher yielding possibilities with less land (less irrigation of poppies than wheat is necessary), and greater demand for the profitable drug trade of the highly-valued opium, prepared from poppies. Many migrants to places such as Pakistan and Iran witnessed the profitability of poppy cultivation in land development, through association with local landowners and businessmen, and were inspired to bring about the same economic improvement in their own lives and villages. Also, opium trade proved to be more cost-efficient than livestock trade, since large amounts of opium are easier to transport than livestock. Local shopkeepers used capital, which was acquired from buying opium resins from farmers and selling them to dealers at the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border, to invest in their own small shops thereby generating further income. Poor villagers saw this as a good investment opportunity, as it meant more efficient farming of one product, with the possibility of creating economic stability in their villages.

Impacts of opium production within Afghan villages

Aside from the obvious threat of addiction, opium production is changing the dynamic of many Afghan villages. Wealth distribution, for example, has changed significantly as the opium economy has created a “new rich” in which young men have control. This new found wealth for the young men of Afghanistan is troubling to many of the village leaders as before they were revered for their wisdom, and now are given little if any respect. It has also been noted that relationships among fathers and sons, neighbours, and family in general, are drastically changing as leadership roles in the economy continue to shift. As the young men have increased contact with the outer world, they have become aware of different methods of performing traditional tasks, which have created tensions between the young men and the
white beards. Also, there has been a shift from the level of co-operation, trust, and reciprocity within villages to a move of self interest, all of which have been adversely affected by the war.

Production and Afghan governance

While the Taliban were considered a threat both to the human rights of Afghans, and to other areas of the world by providing a sanctuary for transnational terrorists, they also demonstrated an ability to strictly enforce a moratorium on opium production. Since their overthrow in 2001, stopping their enforcement with methods including beheading, opium poppy cultivation has been steadily increasing for over the past two decades. There is evidence that the Taliban ban carried the seeds of its own lack of sustainability, due to a many-fold increase in the burden of opium-related debt (locking many households into dependence on future opium poppy cultivation), forcing asset sales to make ends meet, etc. It also appears that the opium ban weakened the Taliban politically. Thus the sustainability of the ban beyond the first year was highly doubtful, even if the
Taliban had not been overthrown in late 2001.

"Even though the Karzai government made opium poppy cultivation and trafficking illegal in 2002, many farmers, driven by poverty, continue to cultivate opium poppy to provide for their families. Indeed, poverty is the primary reason given by Afghan farmers for choosing to cultivate opium poppy." With a farm gate price of approximately $125 per kilogram for
dry opium, an Afghan farmer can make 17 times more profit growing opium poppy ($4,622 per hectare), than by growing wheat ($266 per hectare). "Opium poppy is also drought resistant, easy to transport and store, and, unlike many crops, requires no refrigeration and does not spoil." With Afghanistan's limited irrigation, transportation and other agricultural infrastructure, growing alternative crops is not only less profitable, but more difficult.

In 2006, opium production in the province increased over 162 percent and now accounts for 42 percent of Afghan's total opium output. According to the UNODC, the opium situation in the southern provinces is "out of control."

Corruption and the erosion of the rule of law

The Department of State (DoS), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Department of Defense (DoD), and the Department of Justice (DoJ) are the primary organizations involved in carrying out this counternarcotics strategy for the US. The role of the CIA has not been mentioned. UNODC's executive director believes these measures are insufficient: "What can be done? Since NATO forces are wary of making enemies out of opium farmers by being associated with eradication, and since the Afghan government is opposed to spraying poppy fields, rounding up the major traffickers may be the best available option for disrupting Afghanistan's lucrative opium market."

Both demand and supply reduction are important. "the consuming countries need to get serious about curbing drug addiction. If there was less demand for heroin, the bottom really would fall out of the opium market." Farmers economically dependent on opium must have viable alternatives that give sustainable income. On the supply side, identifying the most-wanted traffickers and subjecting them to international arrest warrants with extradition, asset seizure, and travel bans could help. While it is not easy to destroy opium storage and heroin production laboratories, it is far easier to destroy drugs at the source than in transit.

"Afghanistan's neighbors are either accomplices or victims in the opium trade, so they need to be part of the solution. They could, for example, improve intelligence-sharing and border security to ensure that more opium is seized. At the moment, less than a quarter of the world's opium is intercepted, compared with around half of global cocaine output." This complicates, of course, the complex US relations with Pakistan and Iran.

The nexus between the drug industry and Hawala

There is an important nexus between drugs and hawala

Hawala

Hawala is an informal value transfer system based on the performance and honor of a huge network of money brokers, which are primarily located in the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and South Asia...

(informal money transfer system) in Afghanistan. The UN analysis is based on interviews with a sample of 54 hawala dealers in the main centers of hawala activity of Afghanistan as well as during a visit to Peshawar, Pakistan. In addition, interviews were conducted with users of the hawala system (drug dealers, businessmen, traders, international aid workers), regulators (government officials, central bank personnel), and formal
service providers (bankers, accountants). In addition to hawala, they found protection payments and connections, by which the drug industry has major linkages with local administration as well as high levels of the national government.

See informal money transfer systems to support clandestine activity, including terrorism, drug trade, and intelligence collection.

Different localities studied by the UNODC give different views of the laundering

Money laundering

Money laundering is the process of disguising illegal sources of money so that it looks like it came from legal sources. The methods by which money may be laundered are varied and can range in sophistication. Many regulatory and governmental authorities quote estimates each year for the amount...

of drug funds. It is difficult to get a solid sense of the overall economy. In Faizabad

Faizabad

City of Faizabad , previous capital of Awadh, is the headquarters of Faizabad District and a municipal board in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India, situated on the banks of river Ghaghra . Faizabad has a twin city of Ayodhya, which is considered to be the birthplace of Rama...

, for example, indicated that during certain times of the year close to 100% of the liquidity of the hawala system in the province is derived from drugs, whereas in Herat

Herat

Herāt is the capital of Herat province in Afghanistan. It is the third largest city of Afghanistan, with a population of about 397,456 as of 2006. It is situated in the valley of the Hari River, which flows from the mountains of central Afghanistan to the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan...

,the Northern Alliance

Northern Alliance

The Afghan Northern Alliance is a military-political umbrella organization created by the Islamic State of Afghanistan in 1996.Northern Alliance may also refer to:*Northern Alliance , a Canadian white supremacist group...

stronghold, it was estimated that only 30% of the hawala market's overall transaction volume is directly linked to drugs. Analysis of data gathered in places like Herat was complicated by confirmed links between drug money and legitimate imports. The southern region (Helmand and Kandahar provinces) is also a key centre for money laundering in Afghanistan (about 60% of the funds are drug related and 80–90% of the hawala dealers in Kandahar [the former Taliban stronghold] and Helmand are involved in money transfers related to narcotics).

Helmand has emerged as a key facilitator of the opium trade, both between provinces and exports, while overall estimates of the local hawala markets' drug-related component are of a similar order of magnitude to those in Kandahar. This finding
adds weight to the notion that the major trading centers in these two neighboring provinces should be treated as essentially one market. Bearing this in mind, the study calculated that Helmand could account for roughly US$ 800 million of Afghanistan's drug-related hawala business and that Herat is the second largest contributor, with in the range of US$
300–500 million of drug money laundered annually.

Furthermore, Dubai

Dubai

Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...

appears to be a central clearing house for international hawala activities. In addition, various cities in Pakistan, notably Peshawar

Peshawar

Peshawar is the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the administrative center and central economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan....

, Quetta

Quetta

is the largest city and the provincial capital of the Balochistan Province of Pakistan. Known as the "Fruit Garden of Pakistan" due to the diversity of its plant and animal wildlife, Quetta is home to the Hazarganji Chiltan National Park, which contains some of the rarest species of wildlife in the...

, and Karachi

Karachi

Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...

, are major transaction centers. It appears that even in the case of drug shipments to Iran, payments for them come into Afghanistan from Pakistan...the hawala system has been key to the deepening and widening of the "informal economy" in Afghanistan, where there is anonymity and the opportunity to launder money.

Hawala, however, also contributes positively to the regional economy. It has been central to the survival of Afghanistan's financial system through war. According to Maimbo (2003), "integral to processes of early developmentand vital for the continued delivery of funds to the provinces."
"The hawala system also plays an important role in currency exchange. It participates in the Central Bank's regular foreign currency auctions, and was instrumental in the successful introduction of a new currency for Afghanistan in 2002–2003."

Opium Smuggling into Iran

While Herat is not the highest-volume area of opium trade, Herat, and the other Iranian border areas of Farah, and Nimroz, have some of the highest prices, presumably due to demand from the Iranian market. "Opium prices are especially high in Iran, where law enforcement is strict and where a large share of the opiate consumption market is still for opium rather than heroin. Not surprisingly, it appears that very significant profits can be made by crossing the Iranian border or by entering Central Asian countries like Tajikistan."
According to UNODC estimates bulk of Afghanistan's opium production goes to Iran either for consumption or for on-ward export to other countries in the region and Europe. Iran currently has the largest prevalence of opiate consumption in its population globally. Iran also accounts for 84% of total opiate seizures by law enforcement agencies in the world, interdicting tens of thousands of tons of opiates annually.
The Iranian government has gone through several phases in dealing with its drug problem.

First, during the 1980s, its approach was supply-sided: "Law-and-order policies with zero tolerance led to the arrest of tens of thousands of addicts and the execution of thousands of narcotics traffickers." "There are an estimated 68,000 Iranians imprisoned for drug trafficking and another 32,000 for drug addiction (out of a total prison population of 170,000, based on 2001 statistics)"

Beehner said "Tehran also has spent millions of dollars and deployed thousands of troops to secure its porous 1,000-mile border with Afghanistan and Pakistan... a few hundred Iranian drug police die each year in battles with smugglers. Referring to the head of the UNODC office in Iran, Roberto Arbitrio, Beehner quoted Arbitrio in an interview with The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

. "You have drug groups like guerrilla forces, [who] ... shoot with rocket launchers, heavy machine guns, and Kalashnikovs."

A second-phase strategy came under then-President Mohammad Khatami

Mohammad Khatami

Sayyid Mohammad Khātamī is an Iranian scholar, philosopher, Shiite theologian and Reformist politician. He served as the fifth President of Iran from August 2, 1997 to August 3, 2005. He also served as Iran's Minister of Culture in both the 1980s and 1990s...

, focused more on prevention and treatment. Drug traffic is considered a security problem, and much of it is associated with Baluchi

Baloch people

The Baloch or Baluch are an ethnic group that belong to the larger Iranian peoples. Baluch people mainly inhabit the Balochistan region and Sistan and Baluchestan Province in the southeast corner of the Iranian plateau in Western Asia....

tribesmen, who recognize traditional tribal rather than national borders. Current (2007) reports cite Iranian concern with ethnic guerillas on the borders, possibly supported by the CIA.

Iranian drug strategy changed again under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who took office in 2005. Iran's drug policy has been reconsidered and shifted back toward supply interdiction and boosting border security. It is unclear if this is connected to more wide-ranging concerns with border security, perhaps in relation to Baluchi guerillas in Iran.

Iran has alleged that certain drugs are manufactured in Afghanistan under guidance of western powers and solely sent to Iran for consumption such as certain compounds of Heroine, Crack cocaine

Crack cocaine

Crack cocaine is the freebase form of cocaine that can be smoked. It may also be termed rock, hard, iron, cavvy, base, or just crack; it is the most addictive form of cocaine. Crack rocks offer a short but intense high to smokers...

and CNS stimulants. Iran has also alleged that large quantities of Acetic anhydride

Acetic anhydride

Acetic anhydride, or ethanoic anhydride, is the chemical compound with the formula 2O. Commonly abbreviated Ac2O, it is the simplest isolatable acid anhydride and is a widely used reagent in organic synthesis...

and Hydrochloric acid

Hydrochloric acid

Hydrochloric acid is a solution of hydrogen chloride in water, that is a highly corrosive, strong mineral acid with many industrial uses. It is found naturally in gastric acid....

are brought to Afghanistan from Europe to be used in manufacturing of drugs as Afghanistan does not have the chemical industry to produce the compounds locally.

Samii's 2003 paper described Iran's "primary approach to the narcotics threat [as] interdiction. Iran shares a 936 kilometer border with Afghanistan and a 909 kilometer border with Pakistan, and the terrain in the two eastern provinces—Sistan va Baluchistan and Khorasan—is very rough. The Iranian government has set up static defenses along this border. This includes concrete dams, berms, trenches, and minefields...

As per UN drug report of 2011, Iran accounts for highest rate of opium and heroine seizure rates in the world, intercepting 89% of all seized opium in the world. Within a span of thirty years, 3700 Iranian police officers have been killed and tens of thousands more injured in counter narcotics operations mostly on Afghan and Pakistan borders.

Counter-narcotics policy

Given the fact that a third of the combined legal and illegal Afghan economy is based on the illegal opium

Opium

industry, counter-narcotics policy is currently one of the most important elements of domestic politics. Despite law enforcement measures with a dominant focus on crop eradication programs, Afghan opium production has doubled in just two years. This has shown that currently there is no correlation between poppy crop eradication and the level of poppy cultivation or opium production. The reason for this is the underlying economic nature of the opium problem. Poverty and structural employment are the main reason for 3.3 million Afghans' full dependence on poppies.

Poppy crop eradication could even have damaging side-effects for Afghanistan's process of stabilization and reconstruction. Director of policy research for the Senlis Council, Jorrit Kamminga

Jorrit Kamminga

Jorrit Kamminga is the Director of Policy Research at The International Council on Security and Development . ICOS is an international security and development think tank founded in 2002 with offices in Kabul, London, Ottawa, Rio de Janeiro, Brussels and Paris, and field offices in the Afghan...

, says:

the poppy eradication campaign has been ineffective, counterproductive and could well give the Taliban the decisive advantage in their struggle for the hearts and minds of the Afghan people.

He is referring to US-inspired aerial fumigation campaigns, planned for spring 2008. So far, crop eradication is done manually or mechanically from the ground. Chemical spraying could further destabilize rural areas and risk losing support for NATO's stabilization mission.

Legitimate alternative crops

Since the Taliban allegedly makes Afghanistan's opium business easy, offering credit, seeds and fertilizer to farmers to grow the drugs that fuel the Taliban insurgency

Taliban insurgency

The Taliban insurgency took root shortly after the group's fall from power following the 2001 war in Afghanistan. The Taliban continue to attack Afghan, U.S., and other ISAF troops and many terrorist incidents attributable to them have been registered. The war has also spread over the southern and...

, the US authorities are determined to change that momentum by offering similar incentives to steer farmers away from the drug trade and toward alternative, legitimate crops, like grapes, wheat and saffron

Saffron

Saffron is a spice derived from the flower of Crocus sativus, commonly known as the saffron crocus. Crocus is a genus in the family Iridaceae. Each saffron crocus grows to and bears up to four flowers, each with three vivid crimson stigmas, which are each the distal end of a carpel...

Arrest of Baz Mohammed

The United States Department of State

United States Department of State

The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...

issued a press release that stated the arrest of Baz Mohammed: "... demonstrated a strengthening collaboration between the United States and the newly democratic Afghanistan."

External links

UNODC – United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime – Afghan Opium Survey 2009
The Independent – Afghans battle to combat threats of drugs and Aids – 30/11/06
Drug Library on Afghan Opium
Opium Trade Policy
Opium Airlift
Russians Accuse Karzai of Drug Trade
Aljazeera Report on Drug Trafficking
Taliban's Dirty Poppies
Taliban Trafficking
America's Blind Eye
Iran building a wall to check Pakistani smugglers
Video: Documentary on Iranian Drug War
Losing Ground: Drug control and War in Afghanistan – 12/06
Drug: Afghanistan’s Silent Enemy
Afghanistan, Opium and the Taliban
Learning Lessons from the Taliban Opium Ban by Martin Jelsma in International Journal on Drug Policy, Volume 16, Issue 2, March 2005

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.