Afghanistan's Drug Problem

[oakfox]

Interesting idea.. buying all the poppy? How would you consider convincing an Afghan that you would stay long enough to keep buying the opium longer than drug barons?

"Fortunate" for us that the average Afghan cannot read western newspapers otherwise he would realize that the West is unwilling to make a long term commitment (see reports regarding the Canadian parliament).

(Although I completely understand the Canadian position).

[Stan]

Interesting idea.. buying all the poppy? How would you consider convincing an Afghan that you would stay long enough to keep buying the opium longer than drug barons?

"Fortunate" for us that the average Afghan cannot read western newspapers otherwise he would realize that the West is unwilling to make a long term commitment (see reports regarding the Canadian parliament).

(Although I completely understand the Canadian position).

Hmmm, why do you conclude the farmers wouldn't sell their cash crop to the first person that rolled in with cash, regardless of how long the 'client' was around for ? I think the language issue is long gone, and these folks communicate sufficiently enough to conduct daily transactions.

I agree with Rex. Air on the side of caution...Such a mission is not a soldier's, nor should it be considering the already full plate they have. I really like Rank amateur's recent post -- buy out the competition and pump the price up well out of the reach of criminals, and, make the client's life living hell (but save a smiggin for those on the drip canisters).

Ya know Oakfox, I've asked you several times to introduce yourself on the Dumped German Ordnance Thread. It's hard to take you seriously with no background to support your claims and opinions with

[Billy Ruffian]

Interesting idea.. buying all the poppy? How would you consider convincing an Afghan that you would stay long enough to keep buying the opium longer than drug barons?

"Fortunate" for us that the average Afghan cannot read western newspapers otherwise he would realize that the West is unwilling to make a long term commitment (see reports regarding the Canadian parliament).

(Although I completely understand the Canadian position).

We're even more divided than you might think on this issue. I would argue that Canadians, myself included, are a very compassionate people (as all soft socialists are) who want to see the job get done... well... one half only will fulfill that just so long as no one's feelings get hurt. The other half, I would again argue, wants to get 'Cowboy' on the Taleban/Narco-Lord individuals.

We're a very divided people on this issue.

We've all spoken alot about just buying up the crop from the farmers, but has anyone in the ISAF, NATO or UN hierarchy actually seriously tried to implement this? If we were able to deliver pain-killer medicine to Afghans with a label that said 'Proudly grown in Afghanistan', wouldn't that help us out a little?

[Paul Smyth]

This issue keeps running, primarily championed by the Senlis Council. On the surface it seems logical but I suspect the argument receives far more prominence that it deserves. Why? because:

- there may be a debate about whether there is a global shortage of opiates.

- a key tenet of the proposal to legitimately farm poppy is that the Afghans would self-regulate its production. Thus, farmers would only grow their allotted amount of poppy. This system would not be effective in a corrupt environment.

- little thought is given to the reaction of drug barons and the insurgents who currently profit from the illicit opium market.

- even if a self-regulating system could be implemented, the cultivated opium would not be produced for the illicit heroin market. Continued demand would fuel the requirement for illicit farming.

- if legalizing opium would suddenly remove the profit incentive, why is there a multi-million (£/$/Euro) market in illicit tobacco products?

- the continued cultivation of poppy will do little to ease the chronic effects of opiate production on the populations in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. Too often we ignore the damaging and corrosive effects of opium in the Region.

- the eventual solution is to remove poppy as a crop of choice. Paying farmers to grow it does not promote that outcome.

[Ron Humphrey]

.

- little thought is given to the reaction of drug barons and the insurgents who currently profit from the illicit opium market.(

Actually one thing about war is that if one manages to get the criminals to side with the enemy then there is a greater percentage of them dealt with through attrition vs court systems

.
- the continued cultivation of poppy will do little to ease the chronic effects of opiate production on the populations in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. Too often we ignore the damaging and corrosive effects of opium in the Region.

This may be but can we find an example historically where quitting cold turkey actually worked out in the long run with this sort of thing?

.
- the eventual solution is to remove poppy as a crop of choice. Paying farmers to grow it does not promote that outcome.

Although it's no guarantee sometimes the only way to get a different product on the market is through hostile takeover of the product line. Not sure what the best way to do this is but on one of these threads I tried to lay out an idea. I'll try to find it.

Got It-

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=4816

[selil]

- if legalizing opium would suddenly remove the profit incentive, why is there a multi-million (£/$/Euro) market in illicit tobacco products?

Exactly!!!

It's NOT a multi BILLION Euro market in illicit tobacco because it ain't illegal.

[Paul Smyth]

And it is a major problem. E.g. a quote from British American Tobacco (http://www.bat.com/group/sites/uk__3...&SKN=3&TMP=1):

Illicit trade is not just the work of small operators. Organised crime is increasingly dominant. The rewards can be high. A single 40 foot long container (8.5 million cigarettes) smuggled into the UK and sold at half the recommended retail price could net the criminals around US$2 million in profit.

and (http://www.ash.org.uk/ash_20gyvtb9.htm):
It has been estimated that illicit trade accounted for 10.7 percent of global cigarette sales in 2006, or about 600 billion cigarettes. This analysis found that the illicit tobacco trade deprives governments of $US 40-50 billion in tax revenue each year, greater than the GDPs of two-thirds of the world's countries.
Source: All Africa, 13 February 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/2gqwpm

There is also a global nmarket for counterfeit pharmacuticals. If Afghan Opium was suddenly legalized, it would presumably open up a new opportunity for illicit activity.

P

[jonSlack]

Newsweek - The Opium Brides of Afghanistan

Khalida's father says she's 9—or maybe 10. As much as Sayed Shah loves his 10 children, the functionally illiterate Afghan farmer can't keep track of all their birth dates. Khalida huddles at his side, trying to hide beneath her chador and headscarf. They both know the family can't keep her much longer. Khalida's father has spent much of his life raising opium, as men like him have been doing for decades in the stony hillsides of eastern Afghanistan and on the dusty southern plains. It's the only reliable cash crop most of those farmers ever had. Even so, Shah and his family barely got by: traffickers may prosper, but poor farmers like him only subsist. Now he's losing far more than money. "I never imagined I'd have to pay for growing opium by giving up my daughter," says Shah.

The family's heartbreak began when Shah borrowed $2,000 from a local trafficker, promising to repay the loan with 24 kilos of opium at harvest time. Late last spring, just before harvest, a government crop-eradication team appeared at the family's little plot of land in Laghman province and destroyed Shah's entire two and a half acres of poppies. Unable to meet his debt, Shah fled with his family to Jalalabad, the capital of neighboring Nangarhar province. The trafficker found them anyway and demanded his opium. So Shah took his case before a tribal council in Laghman and begged for leniency. Instead, the elders unanimously ruled that Shah would have to reimburse the trafficker by giving Khalida to him in marriage. Now the family can only wait for the 45-year-old drugrunner to come back for his prize. Khalida wanted to be a teacher someday, but that has become impossible. "It's my fate," the child says.

Afghans disparagingly call them "loan brides"—daughters given in marriage by fathers who have no other way out of debt. The practice began with the dowry a bridegroom's family traditionally pays to the bride's father in tribal Pashtun society. These days the amount ranges from $3,000 or so in poorer places like Laghman and Nangarhar to $8,000 or more in Helmand, Afghanistan's No. 1 opium-growing province. For a desperate farmer, that bride price can be salvation—but at a cruel cost. Among the Pashtun, debt marriage puts a lasting stain on the honor of the bride and her family. It brings shame on the country, too. President Hamid Karzai recently told the nation: "I call on the people [not to] give their daughters for money; they shouldn't give them to old men, and they shouldn't give them in forced marriages."

[Ron Humphrey]

Newsweek - The Opium Brides of Afghanistan

This seems like the perfect job for a Negotiator. You know wait for him to show up to claim the girl and make "him an offer he can't refuse"

It is sad that this happens but it's been going on for a long time there and many other places.

The only way it ever changes is by finding other options for those involved and sometimes thats culturally limited.