Afghanistan's Drug Problem

[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.

[Rank amateur]

Not to mention that if you start buying up supply while other demand stays the same - and the demand from heroin addicts isn't going to decrease - you push up the price, which means that the Taliban will be paying "their" farmers even more than the farmer makes now.

Nonetheless, I do not see how you can create an "inkspot" in certain parts of the country without agreeing to buy their most lucrative cash crop. (Opium makes up a huge percentage of the GDP. You can't replace that with a series of $300 microloans.) And we do need some opium. Lots of patients get a morphine drip at the hospital.

[marct]

Hi RA,

Not to mention that if you start buying up supply while other demand stays the same - and the demand from heroin addicts isn't going to decrease - you push up the price, which means that the Taliban will be paying "their" farmers even more than the farmer makes now.... You can't replace that with a series of $300 microloans.) And we do need some opium. Lots of patients get a morphine drip at the hospital.

I'm just wondering if anyone else is getting a desire to pick up a package of Head On ("APPLIED DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!!!!! - Gods I hate that commercial!)? I wish Tom OC would comment on this since he knows more about criminology than I do, but there appears to be a direct correlation between demand, making something illegal and price. Thinking back to the Volstead Act and the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution I really have to wonder who, outside of organized crime,benefited? Come on folks, back to some basic economics - if you want to reduce the price on a product then destroy the monopoly that runs it; in this case, it is a monopoly supported by various governments and given to various and sundry "drug lords". Legalize them and watch the bottom fall out of the market.

Marc

[Rank amateur]

Hi Marc:

Never going to happen, but I do think we need an economist or two on the council. COIN and nation building distorts markets and I think that the results are relatively predictable. It'd be nice to know the results in advance, instead of waiting to see what happens.

[Jedburgh]

The Jamestown Foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor, 26 Feb 08:

Russia, Afghanistan and the Drug Trade

Alarmed by the rise of opium cultivation in Afghanistan, Russia’s Federal Drug Enforcement Service has opened a permanent office in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Federal Drug Enforcement Service Director Alexei Milovanov said of the move, “Russia advances cooperation and interaction with Afghanistan in the war on drug production and proliferation…As for the office in Kabul, our representative there will be in charge of efficient interaction between Russian and Afghani structures dealing with trafficking. With an emphasis, needless to say, on what channels lead to Russia. All of that will be carried out in close cooperation with our Central Asian colleagues.”

Milovanov also suggested that Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan establish border checkpoints and customs offices and make a joint effort to draw up an international agreement to track and confiscate drug trafficking profits.....

[Rex Brynen]

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?

I shudder to think of the leakage, fraud and corruption that would result if you had millions of dollars having to paid out to rural farmers, and tons of poppy to be collected and destroyed. I suspect much of the former would end up in the wrong pockets, and much of the latter would enter the market anyway (or be repeatedly resold).

[Entropy]

Interesting report here showing how Afghanistan's nouveau-rich are stylin'

[bismark17]

Fitting example of how we will never be able to compete with the other side in the "war" on drugs as we currently wage it.

[bourbon]

U.N. Reports That Taliban Is Stockpiling Opium, By KIRK KRAEUTLER. The New York Times, November 27, 2008.

UNITED NATIONS — Afghanistan has produced so much opium in recent years that the Taliban are cutting back poppy cultivation and stockpiling raw opium in an effort to support prices and preserve a major source of financing for the insurgency, Antonio Maria Costa, the head of the United Nations drug office, says.

Mr. Costa made his remarks to reporters last week as his office prepared to release its latest survey of Afghanistan’s opium crop. Issued Thursday, it showed that poppy cultivation had retreated in much of the country and was now overwhelmingly concentrated in the 7 of 34 provinces where the insurgency remains strong, most of those in the south.

Afghanistan Opium Survey 2008. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, November 2008. (187 Page PDF)

[davidbfpo]

I am sure other threads have carried views on Afghan drug production since the last update, anyway this seems a good place to add this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...iban-drugs.htm

Aside from the amounts seized, the operation involved the entire UK Helmand mobile force, an infantry battallion (Royal Scots, ex-Black Watch), plus a 100 ANA and all landed by helicopter. No details on whose helicopters used, I suspect UK and US.

Following procedure I suspect the drugs will be handed over to the Afghan government, hopefully burnt quickly before leakage.

davidbfpo

[davidbfpo]

The SWJ blog article: http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/200...fitab/#c003212 appeared June 14th and was missed being in Chicago.

Recalled this alternative view, which advocates melons: http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magaz...ashnikov.thtml

Makes an interesting contrast! Later author's background not readily found.

davidbfpo

[120mm]

That, because of it's helicopter-centric slant, kind of glosses over a bunch, but it describes what "yours truly" has been up to since January.

http://www.verticalmag.com/control/n.../?a=10797&z=11

Change From Above
Thursday, May 14, 2009 - Graham Lavery, Vertical 911


In this story that appears in the current issue of Vertical 911, Graham Lavery reports on the U.S. Department of State Air Wing's counternarcotics mission in Afghanistan.


Part of a three-ship formation as it makes its way
across the Red Desert. This flight includes gunship
support and SAR capability, safety precautions
that the Air Wing takes whenever possible.
Graham Lavery Photo.
From a side seat in the “penalty box” of a United States Department of State (DoS) Huey, cruising 1,000 feet over Afghanistan's infamous Helmand Valley, it's easy to see how this southern province produces up to half the world's total supply of opium poppies. With huge areas of the country being rocky and barren, most Afghan farmers must cultivate every square inch of arable land through an ingenious system of terracing, levies and dykes. But, the broad, flat Helmand Valley was the focus of intensive American engineering efforts in the mid-20th century, and part of the legacy from that is a network of irrigation canals which allows agriculture to flourish here.

During the poppy season (which runs, roughly, from January through June), Helmand is vividly green. Even in the off-season, the scene from overhead is inviting, exotic — and deceptively peaceful. The reality on the ground, of course, is dramatically different.

More at the link...

[davidbfpo]

Thanks. A different viewpoint and informative - even if officially sanctioned. The role of Helmand Province in producing so much heroin is something the UK government would prefer not to publicise here.

davidbfpo

[jcustis]

(Copied to here from the Afghan agriculture thread) I'm about to drop an AAR in the Afghanistan PTP thread, but I just attended a lecture by Gretchen Peters (author of Seeds of Terror, and she made the point that opium cultivated in Afghanistan would have to go through a shift in collection and production methods in order to come close to the hygienic methods required for medicinal purposes. She also added that unless the whole shebang was subsidized, medicinal opium would not likely garner prices higher than the farmer would get for growing wheat.

I found those points very interesting.

[davidbfpo]

Economy of effort: here is the author's website: http://gretchenpeters.org/ ; on a quick skim her blogsite has some useful pointers on relations with Afghans and a critical review of her book: http://www.registan.net/index.php/20...etchen-peters/ I note she responds at length to this on her blogsite: http://blog.gretchenpeters.org/

davidbfpo

[Jedburgh]

US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, 10 Aug 09:

Afghanistan's Narco War: Breaking the Link Between Drug Traffickers and Insurgents

The attempt to cut off the drug money represents a central pillar of counter-insurgency strategy—deny financing to the enemy. This shift is an overdue move that recognizes the central role played by drug traffickers and drug money in the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. While it is too early to judge whether this will be a watershed, it is not too early to raise questions about whether the goals of the counter-narcotics strategy can be achieved. Is it possible to slow the flow of drug money to the insurgency, particularly in a country where most transactions are conducted in cash and hidden behind an ancient and secretive money transfer system? Does the U.S. Government have the capacity and the will to provide the hundreds more civilians required to carry out the second step in the counter-narcotics program and transform a poppy-dominated economy into one where legitimate agriculture can thrive? Can our NATO allies be counted on to step up their contributions on the military and civilian sides at a time when support for the war is waning in most European countries and Canada?

[Jedburgh]

UNODC, 10 Feb 10: Afghanistan Opium Survey 2010: Winter Rapid Assessment

After a major drop in opium cultivation (one third) over the past two years, UNODC projects a stable crop in Afghanistan in 2010.

The majority of the 20 Afghan provinces that were poppy-free in 2009 will remain so this year. Yet, three provinces (Baghlan, Faryab and Sari Pul, all in the north) risk showing the beginning of a trend reversal, with a minimal increase in cultivation in the districts with higher insecurity. Five other provinces (Kunar, Nangarhar, Kabul, Laghman and Badakhshan), not poppy-free so far, are also expected to have negligible amounts of poppies.

All considered, with appropriate local community-inspired measures – such as shura-driven campaigns, governor-led eradication, and development assistance – up to 25 Afghan provinces could become poppy-free in 2010. Further progress in the reduction of drug cultivation (hectares) in Afghanistan is within reach.

Against the recent trend of ever higher productivity in the country-side, agricultural conditions in Afghanistan are expected to deteriorate in 2010, because of bad weather. Lower opium yields should also reduce the volume (tons) of opium produced, continuing the decline that has characterized the past three years......