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Poppy pods procured from Kandahar City. They were lanced six times each, indicating a slightly above average extraction of raw opium. Photo by Matt Dupee. |
“I’ve been in this business a long time, but it really disturbs me when I see the opium workshops in Mawand that are completely run with children labor.” This is how Suleiman, a thuggish drug trader from southern Afghanistan, described Afghanistan’s narcotics industry to me when I was in Kandahar this past June. “They would line up around the compound each morning, just hoping and praying they would get picked to work for a wage that’s less than 40 Pakistani rupees [less than $1] a day. They become instant addicts cooking the opium in large vats.”
Sadly, Suleiman’s story is not uncommon. According to UN statistics, nearly two-thirds of all Afghan opium, some 6,900 tons last year, is converted into morphine-base or heroin in grubby workshops like those he described before being smuggled out of the country. That’s enough opium to make well over 600 metric tons of heroin. Keep in mind that the United States and Canada, with a combined population exceeding 330 million, consumes approximately 22 tons of heroin annually.
Afghanistan’s unparalleled narcotics industry has produced over 90% of the world’s illicit opium and heroin for six years in a row. International efforts to dismantle the Afghan narcotics machine have been insufficient, and only recently has the picture begun to improve slightly. The Obama administration overhauled the US counternarcotics strategy this year, removing forced eradication measures and stepping up interdiction, drug seizures, and attacks on clandestine drug refinement labs across the country. The revised strategy, along with the increase in interdiction activity that was begun late last year, is apparently having an effect. According to the UNODC, during the first half of this year NATO and Afghan operations destroyed over 90 tons of precursor chemicals used in the production of illicit drugs, 450 tons of opium poppy seeds, 77.5 tons of narcotics, and 27 laboratories.
Although interdiction is a step in the right direction, not nearly enough is being done to target the essential precursor chemicals smuggled into Afghanistan that augment the capabilities of drug refinement workshops. While 90 tons of precursor chemicals sounds like a lot, consider that Afghanistan annually uses nearly 14,500 tons of such chemicals to refine opium into a usable substance. Last year, less than 68 tons of precursor chemicals were interdicted. This year, during my travels north of Kabul in late June, I saw dozens of heavy transport trucks carrying shipments of precursor chemicals likely to have been acetic anhydride, the key ingredient used to refine opium into morphine base and heroin. The trucks traveled on main thoroughfares, and their drivers made no effort to conceal their illicit cargo. Political protection for these types of convoys is said to be traceable to the highest levels of the Afghan government. In areas controlled by insurgents such as the Taliban, commanders are providing the necessary protection for drug shipments and precursor chemicals under the guise of “transit-taxes,” earning insurgents well over $75 million annually in protection fees.
Afghanistan’s narcotics industry continues to erode security and stability initiatives, entrenches corruption deep within the Afghan central government, and feeds a growing generation of heroin addicts across South Asia. Meanwhile, diseases like HIV/AIDS continue to spread at unprecedented rates due to the increase in intravenous drug use, a relatively new phenomenon in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s narco-problem will not simply go away by itself. In order to even begin to turn the tide against this robust and entrenched industry, corruption must be fought and security established, long enough to allow for meaningful agricultural assistance; the core infrastructure must be developed, such as creating cold-storage depots and improving roadways; and micro-financing must be made available for farmers. In addition, it will be essential to target the nexus between drug producers and traffickers, on the one hand, and government officials and insurgent commanders on the other. Unless Afghanistan’s narcotics problem is properly addressed, the country will be consumed by its own corruption, bad governance, and a thriving insurgency fueled by narco-profits and criminality.
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6 Comments
Govt’s have been trying to stop this for yrs . Its is one of the biggest scams perpetrated on humanity. The only way to stop this is to remove the profit.
If you want to stop people from profiting from illegal drugs then they must be medicalized . If a person develops an addiction to pain meds then send them to a doctor who can provide a perscription and monitor their use on a weekly or monthly basis like is being done in several country’s already.
The 2 main side effects to opiate use is constipation and dependency.these are both controlable side effects.
I was addicted to heroin for over 20 yrs before I got help.
I worked paid my bills and lived as normal a life as any one else and was one of the most productive workers on the job. The idea that all opiate dependent people are unable to work or live a normal life is a LIE. So we have a choice now . we continue to do what we all know does not work or we step up and take control of this situation once and for all .
THAT IS A LOT OF TONNAGE FOR A COUNTRY THAT HAS ONE MAIN ROAD. THE RING ROAD AND FEW BORDER CROSSINGS THAT CAN HANDLE LARGE TRUCKS.
ONE SIEZURE OF GRENADES LAST YEAR WAS 2200 PCS. TONS OF BOMB MAKING MATERIALS WERE SIEZED LAST WEEK. TONS OF HASHISH ALSO MOVE ON THE RING ROAD. CONTROL THE ROADS AND THE MAIN BORDER CROSSINGS YOU WOULD PUT A BIG DENT IN THE TALIBAN FUNDING AND CONTROL.
FORCE THEM INTO ANIMAL CARAVANS TO MOVE ILLICIT MATERIAL WHICH WOULD HAVE TO LARGE AND REQUIRE LOTS OF MANPOWER TO MOVE THAT KIND OF MATERIAL AND EASY TO SPOT.
YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO STOP IT BUT YOU SURE COULD CHOKE IT DOWN.
SMALL CASH BONUSES PAID DIRECTLY TO THE AFGAN BORDER GUARDS , POLICE AND SOME AFGAN ARMY UNITS, WHO MAKE AN INTERDICTION TAKE AND KEEP THE TRUCKS THAT ARE MAKING THE DELIVERIES.
IN HAS TO BE CHEAPER FOR THE WORLD TO STOP THE DRUGS AT THE SOURCE THAN TO STOP IT ONCE IT GETS DISPURSED AROUND THE WORLD.
Poppy is a very effective cash crop, if it’s sale was legalised, regulated and taxes in those areas under Afghan Government control, it would immediately provide large amounts of money that can be used for reconstruction of the country, and would win over the millions of Afghans who directly or indirectly benefit from the sale of this plant and it’s derivatives.
“CONTROL THE ROADS AND THE MAIN BORDER CROSSINGS YOU WOULD PUT A BIG DENT IN THE TALIBAN FUNDING AND CONTROL.”
“SMALL CASH BONUSES PAID DIRECTLY TO THE AFGAN BORDER GUARDS , POLICE AND SOME AFGAN ARMY UNITS, WHO MAKE AN INTERDICTION TAKE AND KEEP THE TRUCKS THAT ARE MAKING THE DELIVERIES.”
A good idea in theory but you must understand that any “bonus” that can be made by an Afghan Army soldier or police for an interdiction could be be easily doubled by narcotraffickers in exchange for safe passage of the product. In a culture where corruption is acceptable and money is the law the odds favor the narcotraffickers, if we are to rely on the Afghan Army for interdiction. Relying on the US army for interdiction (which requires constant monitoring of thousands of roadways) would require a MUCH larger US military presence than has currently been allotted. Such an occupation is too expensive to maintain indefinitely (not to mention interdiction efforts thus far have shown minimal success). At the end of the day the laws of supply and demand will win out unless there is a fundamental shift in how we approach this problem.
Paul, on the surface this may seem like a noble venture but remains completely unfeasible. Given the current level of government corruption, inefficnecy, and the exhuberent levels of insecurity, it would be impossible for the Afghan government or even the international community to create the necessary mechanisms to foster a licit regulation of poppy cultivation. The country’s that have gone that route, namely India, the black market and diversion of opium is extremely high and troublesome. Not to mention, the world currently consumes roughly 3,700 tons of licit opium. As it stands, their is no demand among the pharmecutical conglermates for more opium.
The only current strategy I have heard of was offering amnesty to some of the higher level traffickers to invest their money in Afghan infrastructure instead of laundering their profits and investing outside of Afghanistan (Dubai). There is little support among the international community for such a scheme although Afghan government offcials were previously on board for such a program as was durg kingpin Haji Juma Khan before he backed out (and then was subsequently arrested, no coincidence there).
Why is it that the WORLD–planet EARTH–can cooperate on getting an international space station out there, but simply CANNOT cooperate on problems like this which are made to look more complicated than rocket science?
Just another fact that underscores that we live in a TYPE ZERO civilization.
(And we can’t even blame this one on Pakistan…)