Misguided and badly formulated drug policy has accelerated and compounded all of Afghanistan’s problems, and has effectively hijacked the international community’s nation-building efforts in the country. Five years ago, the international community prioritised counter-narcotics as one of their top objectives for Afghanistan, yet this priority, almost more than anything else, ignored the realities of the country. Afghanistan is severely debilitated by poverty, and poppy cultivation represents a survival strategy for millions of Afghans. Most of Afghanistan is so mired in poverty that without poppy, families cannot feed their children. This misplaced prioritisation of counter-narcotics focused substantial amounts of aid funds away from development and poverty relief; prompted the formulation of ill conceived drug policies for Afghanistan and misinformed the implementation strategies for these eradication and alternative development policies.
Yet despite all the counter-narcotics and alternative development funds provided by the international community, the opium crisis in Afghanistan is worse than ever, and entrenched in almost all facets of Afghan society. In September 2006 the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime announced record poppy cultivation levels in Afghanistan: 165,000 hectares of poppy were cultivated in the 2005-2006 growing season, with a potential yield of 6,100 metric tons of opium. This is a 59% percent increase from 2005, and demonstrates that five years of flawed counternarcotics priorities have brought no positive change in Afghanistan. They have only served to undermine government legitimacy, stability, security and development, whilst farmers have lost confidence in the current Karzai administration. Ultimately, this loss of confidence has ultimately aided insurgents. Five years ago, the total area of cultivated hectares of poppy was less than half of the current total....
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