Opium replacement
Encyclopedia
Opium replacement simply means the process of replacing the growing as a cash crop
of the opium
poppy, the source of morphine
and heroin, with non-drug crops. This kind of project was probably first discussed in the mid-sixties, and was first implemented in northern Thailand
, by Thailand's king, Bhumibol Adulyadej
, in 1969.
, moving to Iran
and Pakistan
, on to Afghanistan
, India
, Nepal
, Burma (or Myanmar), Thailand
, Laos
, China
and Vietnam
. It is believed to have spread into the Central Independent States (the former Soviet states such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan). It has also been transferred to Mexico
(reportedly by immigrant Chinese opium addicts) and to Colombia
(reportedly as part of a collaboration between drug traffickers from South-East Asia and Colombia). At the present time (mid-2006) it is only being produced in significant amounts in Burma, Afghanistan and Colombia. Laos, Mexico and Pakistan produce small intermediate amounts and Thailand and Vietnam produce so little that the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime lumps them together as 'other south-east Asia'. Of these many countries, opium replacement (or alternative development, or whatever) has been tried in Thailand, Laos, Burma, Vietnam, Pakistan, Mexico and Afghanistan.
Of these countries, there have been significant opium replacement programmes in Thailand, Laos, Burma, Vietnam, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mexico and Colombia.
It is arguable that no other country has been able to achieve a similar level of success to Thailand. In Colombia, much of the opium cutivation takes place under the protection of armed groups opposed to the government, and so the process has not had much of an effect on total production. Mexico has never received the resources and attention that other countries have. Laos has experienced very steep declines in cultivation, but former opium farmers are in many cases shockingly poor- the country does not have the vibrant licit economy that Thailand has. The same observation goes for Laos and Pakistan, and the latter is now experiencing an increase in cultivation due to overspill from Afghanistan. It is hard to comment on the process in Burma, as saying anything at all about Burma founders on the incredibly Byzantine politics of that country. The United Nations has one project in the Wa region (in the north-east), the Japanese development agency had a project for some time (that failed) and the Doi Tung project of Thailand also initiated some activities. These projects cover areas too small to have much of an effect on national production. In fact, production does seem to have been falling, but it is believed that this is simply because of a decision by warlords in Burma to concentrate on methamphetamine. At any rate, Burma is not the poster child of opium replacement. Lastly, there is Afghanistan, whose production and hectare dwarf even Burma at its peak. The opium replacement project there is a few years old now, but it is slow going, because of the scale of the cultivation, the size of the country, terrible security, destruction of infrastructure and weakness of government institutions.
Rightly or wrongly, opium replacement projects are no longer planned and executed with very long time frames, as was the case with Thailand's Royal Project, and the Doi Tung project. Nowadays, projects are more likely to take place over just two or three years.
Cash crop
In agriculture, a cash crop is a crop which is grown for profit.The term is used to differentiate from subsistence crops, which are those fed to the producer's own livestock or grown as food for the producer's family...
of the 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...
poppy, the source of 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...
and heroin, with non-drug crops. This kind of project was probably first discussed in the mid-sixties, and was first implemented in northern Thailand
Northern Thailand
Thailand's northern region is geographically characterised by multiple mountain ranges which continue from the Shan Hills in bordering Myanmar and Laos, and the river valleys which cut through them...
, by Thailand's king, Bhumibol Adulyadej
Bhumibol Adulyadej
Bhumibol Adulyadej is the current King of Thailand. He is known as Rama IX...
, in 1969.
Evolution of concept
When this kind of project was first conceived and developed, it was conceived along narrow agricultural lines. Basically, agriculturists tried to identify crops that generated more income than the opium poppy. In the late seventies and early eighties, it was recognized that this focus was too narrow and did not recognize the social and cultural roles of opium cultivation and consumption played in the lives of the opium farmers of northern Thailand. Development projects started to address many or even all aspects of rural life, including health, education and social issues. The term 'integrated rural development' became more popular than 'opium replacement' and 'opium substitution'. In the nineties, this phrase also passed out of use, and was replaced by 'Alternative Development'. The term (and minor variants) is still used in Latin America (where the approach is used as a strategy for reducing the supply of coca as well as opium). The United Nations refers to these kinds of projects as 'Sustainable Alternative Livelihoods' and in Afghanistan most of the agencies refer to them as just 'Sustainable Livelihoods'. Although practitioners often say that there are differences between these terms, in essence they all mean the same thing.Practice of opium replacement around the world
Opium has been grown in every country running along a huge East-West strip of Asia, starting with TurkeyTurkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, moving to 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...
and 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...
, on to Afghanistan
Afghanistan
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...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
, Burma (or Myanmar), Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, Laos
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
. It is believed to have spread into the Central Independent States (the former Soviet states such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan). It has also been transferred to Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
(reportedly by immigrant Chinese opium addicts) and to Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
(reportedly as part of a collaboration between drug traffickers from South-East Asia and Colombia). At the present time (mid-2006) it is only being produced in significant amounts in Burma, Afghanistan and Colombia. Laos, Mexico and Pakistan produce small intermediate amounts and Thailand and Vietnam produce so little that the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime lumps them together as 'other south-east Asia'. Of these many countries, opium replacement (or alternative development, or whatever) has been tried in Thailand, Laos, Burma, Vietnam, Pakistan, Mexico and Afghanistan.
Of these countries, there have been significant opium replacement programmes in Thailand, Laos, Burma, Vietnam, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mexico and Colombia.
The case of Thailand
Thailand is widely considered to be the most successful example of opium replacement. Although peak production in Thailand was never especially high (perhaps 150 tonnes - 200 tonnes, compared to 3,500 tonnes last year in Afghanistan), Thailand's approach is widely admired because of the strength and depth of the licit agricultural economy that has been introduced to replace opium. More than 150 crops have been successfully introduced to farmers, usually from temperate climates (as the opium growing regions are much cooler than the tropical lowlands), including cabbage, lettuce, kidney beans, tea, coffee, peaches, apples, various kinds of herbs and decorative flowers. In general, the crops were cash crops of medium to high value. It is notable that many of these crops have entered permanently into Thai cooking and therefore Thai culture, even though most are not native to Thailand. Thailand is also noted for having two particularly successful projects that are still operative. These are the Royal Project (established in 1969) and the Doi Tung project (established in 1988). Both have completely removed opium from their project areas and have helped farmers to improve living conditions a great deal, and so are studied and visited by practitioners of opium replacement from other countries.It is arguable that no other country has been able to achieve a similar level of success to Thailand. In Colombia, much of the opium cutivation takes place under the protection of armed groups opposed to the government, and so the process has not had much of an effect on total production. Mexico has never received the resources and attention that other countries have. Laos has experienced very steep declines in cultivation, but former opium farmers are in many cases shockingly poor- the country does not have the vibrant licit economy that Thailand has. The same observation goes for Laos and Pakistan, and the latter is now experiencing an increase in cultivation due to overspill from Afghanistan. It is hard to comment on the process in Burma, as saying anything at all about Burma founders on the incredibly Byzantine politics of that country. The United Nations has one project in the Wa region (in the north-east), the Japanese development agency had a project for some time (that failed) and the Doi Tung project of Thailand also initiated some activities. These projects cover areas too small to have much of an effect on national production. In fact, production does seem to have been falling, but it is believed that this is simply because of a decision by warlords in Burma to concentrate on methamphetamine. At any rate, Burma is not the poster child of opium replacement. Lastly, there is Afghanistan, whose production and hectare dwarf even Burma at its peak. The opium replacement project there is a few years old now, but it is slow going, because of the scale of the cultivation, the size of the country, terrible security, destruction of infrastructure and weakness of government institutions.
Skepticism
Despite the obvious success of Thailand and to a lesser extent Pakistan and Vietnam, many people deny that opium replacement is actually effective. The first argument is that Thailand is the only really resounding success, but that its success is due to lots of unique and non-replicable factors. The second is that development activities simply cause production to relocate to other areas (what is often called "The Balloon Effect"). These are highly complicated arguments that cannot be resolved quickly. On one hand it is true that there are many farmers who don't grow drug crops as a result of agricultural and social development. On the other hand, the world's supply of illicit drugs is continutally rising and prices are falling, despite the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars by development agencies and national governments on these kinds of projects. Despite this controversy, the programmes go on.Organization of modern opium replacement projects
Opium replacement projects are typically implemented by national government agencies, with the support of an international donor. Usually, the donor gives the funding and a contractor implements the project in partnership with the national agency. At the moment, the largest providers of funding are the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the European Union. Major contractors include the German Technical Cooperation Agency and several for-profit firms from the United States, such as Chemonics. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime helps to coordinate the many different efforts, and also funds a few projects. In Colombia, and Mexico, a few additional players are present, although opium replacement is a minor focus (the cultivation of coca being the major one).Rightly or wrongly, opium replacement projects are no longer planned and executed with very long time frames, as was the case with Thailand's Royal Project, and the Doi Tung project. Nowadays, projects are more likely to take place over just two or three years.