Has spraying in any of the South American narcotic producing countries worked at all?
Has spraying in any of the South American narcotic producing countries worked at all?
Everyone's a Winner at Helmand's Drug Bazaars - IWPR, 1 June.
... Sayed Gul is new to the retail trade. Until now, he has been a poppy farmer. But lured by the hope of large profits, he decided to sell his own crop this year.
“I got 36 kilos of poppy paste from my land this season, so I decided to go into business,” he told IWPR.
It is a difficult market – Helmand’s farmers have grown so much poppy that prices are down, so buyers like “Hajji Sahib” must be courted assiduously.
Afghanistan is by far the world’s largest producer of opium poppy. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, the country produced over 90 per cent of the world’s heroin in 2006, with Helmand alone accounting for close to 45 per cent of that figure.
Like most of the other merchants at the Chan Jir bazaar, Sayed Gul is paying the police to leave him alone while he sells his highly illegal wares. The monthly fee for protection hovers around 6,000 Pakistani rupees, or approximately 100 US dollars.
...
Farmers also pay informal “taxes” to police and local officials from the beginning of the process all the way up to the harvest.
“The government makes a lot of money at harvest time,” said Shah Mahmud, 40, a landowner in Nadali. “We paid about 1,500 afghani per jerib to the police not to destroy our poppy during the eradication campaign. Now we’re paying the government to allow us to sell the product without interference - we are giving them 220 grams of poppy paste per jerib.”
...
The arrangements are quite open and operate semi-officially, according to Hajji Aligul, 55, a tribal leader in Nadali.
“I attended a shura [council] where we negotiated with the government,” he told IWPR. “We agreed that we would give 220 grams of poppy paste per jerib. The police commander told us, of course, that if we did not reach agreement, they would take the paste by force.”
...
The Taleban are another major player in the drugs game. While evidence is sketchy, many observers assume that the insurgency is being funded by international drug profits. It is undisputed that the Taleban are receiving funds locally from farmers, shopkeepers, and traffickers.
“Local people collect money for the Taleban,” said Shah Mahmud 40, a landowner in Nadali. “The Taleban contact tribal leaders and say, ‘don’t forget us, we need money too’. Most people give voluntarily.”
Others pay out of fear, say some residents.
But cooperation has been so close that farmers say the Taleban scaled down their “spring offensive” this year so as not to interfere with bringing in the crop.
“It is not beneficial to have fighting during the harvest,” said Shah Mahmud. “The Taleban and the government both receive money from poppy – they lose out if the crop is destroyed by bombing or fighting.”
In several places, villagers have requested that the Taleban leave the area until after the harvest.
“We told the Taleban, ‘This year the government was very good to us and did not destroy our poppy,” said one tribal leader who did not want to give his name. “We said, ‘Stop your fighting during harvest time, otherwise we will turn against you, take up arms against you and kick you out of the area.’”
Najmuddin, 25, a landowner in Zarghon village in Nadali, agreed.
“The Taleban treat us very kindly and we will support them forever,” he told IWPR. “They left so that people could get their harvest in. The government has also treated us kindly, and helped us set up markets where we can sell our poppy ...”
From 4100 to 6100 Metric Tons
- that's what the MSN article is reporting. Opium production is up that much from 2005:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19431056/
"U.N.: Opium production soaring in Afghanistan
Nation’s record poppy harvest has boosted global supply to new record high
..
In 2006, Afghanistan accounted for 92 percent of global illicit opium production, up from 70 percent in 2000 and 52 percent a decade earlier. The higher yields in Afghanistan have brought global opium production to a new record high of 6,610 metric tons in 2006, a 43 percent increase over 2005."
that's beau-coup smoke - no wonder the taliban keeps coming across the border in force.
Last edited by goesh; 06-26-2007 at 01:54 PM.
ISN, 17 Jul 07: Addicted in Afghanistan
...Experts warn that high levels of unemployment in Afghanistan, war trauma and wide-scale bereavement are fuelling the population's appetite for the drug.
"Thirty years of war and social disintegration," Dr Suleman says, "have left ordinary Afghans extremely vulnerable to anxiety, chronic depression and post-traumatic stress disorders. And in such a scenario, the easy and cheap availability of opium, heroin and other drugs is creating a rapid dependency on these harmful pharmaceuticals."
For treatment of women, a team of female doctors and counselors from the Nejat Centre visit their homes. The trend of opium uses so entrenched, Nadira Yusuf told ISN Security Watch, a female counselor at the clinic, that women use opium as "medicine" to silence a wailing child, or even alleviate medical conditions such as tuberculosis, asthma or the common cold....
Taliban Raise Poppy Production to a Record Again - NYTIMES, 25 Aug.
Afghanistan produced record levels of opium in 2007 for the second straight year, led by a staggering 45 percent increase in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand Province, according to a new United Nations survey to be released Monday.
The report is likely to touch off renewed debate about the United States’ $600 million counternarcotics program in Afghanistan, which has been hampered by security challenges and endemic corruption within the Afghan government.
“I think it is safe to say that we should be looking for a new strategy,” said William B. Wood, the American ambassador to Afghanistan, commenting on the report’s overall findings. “And I think that we are finding one.”
Mr. Wood said the current American programs for eradication, interdiction and alternative livelihoods should be intensified, but he added that ground spraying poppy crops with herbicide remained “a possibility.” Afghan and British officials have opposed spraying, saying it would drive farmers into the arms of the Taliban.
While the report found that opium production dropped in northern Afghanistan, Western officials familiar with the assessment said, cultivation rose in the south, where Taliban insurgents urge farmers to grow poppies......
Last edited by Jedburgh; 08-28-2007 at 01:15 PM. Reason: Added link, edited content.
UNODC, 27 Aug 07: Afghanistan: 2007 Annual Opium Poppy Survey
In 2007, Afghanistan cultivated 193,000 hectares of opium poppies, an increase of 17% over last year. The amount of Afghan land used for opium is now larger than the corresponding total for coca cultivation in Latin America (Colombia, Peru and Bolivia combined).
Favourable weather conditions produced opium yields (42.5 kg per hectare) higher than last year (37.0 kg/ha). As a result, in 2007 Afghanistan produced an extraordinary 8,200 tons of opium (34% more than in 2006), becoming practically the exclusive supplier of the world’s deadliest drug (93% of the global opiates market). Leaving aside 19th century China, that had a population at that time 15 times larger than today’s Afghanistan, no other country in the world has ever produced narcotics on such a deadly scale.....
Follow Up
Follow up to Jed and Tequila:
Second Record Level for Afghan Opium Crop KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 27 — Opium cultivation in Afghanistan grew by 17 percent in 2007, reaching record levels for the second straight year, according to a United Nations report released Monday.
Despite a $600 million American counternarcotics effort and an increase in the number of poppy-free provinces to 13 from 6, the report found that the amount of land in Afghanistan used for opium production is now larger than amount of land used for coca cultivation in all of Latin America.
Afghanistan now accounts for 93 percent of the world’s opium, up from 92 percent last year, the report said.
Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes Policy, which issued the report, called the new figures terrifying. “Afghanistan today is cultivating megacrops of opium,” he said at a news conference. “Leaving aside China in the 19th century, no other country has produced so much narcotics in the past 100 years.”
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