I. Identification

1. The Issue

Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of opium. Because poppy plants are used to make opium, poppie growing is illegal in most countries, and only frown in highly controlled and specially designated areas. In 2002, the revenue generated by the sale of opium from Afghanistan on the world market exceeded $1 billion at the farm level – almost 5% of Afghanistan's GDP. During the 1990’s, Afghanistan poppies supplied approximately 70% of the world’s opium, but in 1999 the Taliban's fatwa prohibitted the planting of poppies and was 96% successful in eliminating the crops. However, the Taliban government allowed for the trade of opium, and taxed it heavily. Since the US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 and the subsequent ousting of the Taliban, crop production resumed with full-force. The poppies are processd into opium, and the opium is traded throughout the region and into Western Europe. The illegal trade of poppies has created transnational disputes and directly led to the decline in civil society in the countries through which it is traded. Under the Taliban and in post-Taliban Afghanistan, the profits from opium sales have been used to fund tribal warlords and fuel armed conflict.

Ironically, the sale of poppies for pharmacetuical or culinary use is entirely legal in most countries.

2. Description

The destruction of the poppy crop is essential not only in the global effort to eliminate the drug trade, but also for the future of Afghanistan. Because poppies are such a lucrative crop, they have replaced the indigenous crops that previously allowed Afghanistan to be a self-sufficient food producer, and those indigenous plants may never be fully reintroduced to their natural habitat in Afghanistan. Beyond the environmental impact of cash crop crowding out indigenous food crops, there is the problem of the money gained by the sale of opium. Outside of the capital of Kabul, Afghanistan is dominated and torn about by regional warlords. These warlords use money from the opium trade to buy weapons, strengthen their power bases, and fund terrorist activities. The strength of these warlords has prevented the reconstruction of a stable Afghani infrastructure. Afghanistan has a dire dearth of adequately run schools, a poor road system, no developed or comprehensive security apparatus, poor health care, an inadequate legal system, and no method of addressing these problems. The warlords dominate the country outside of Kabul, preventing a modern Afghanistan from emerging from the rubble of the past decade. The money that could be used for create this basic infrastructure is being diverted into the pockets of tribal leaders and regional warlords who have gained the loyalty of the people by providing them with protection. As such, the drug trade is Afghanistan’s largest barrier to unification stabilization. If the drug trade was eradicated, the farmers could plant crops for the country to become a self-sufficient food producer again, the power of the regional warlords would decline in relation to Kabul, and the ethnic/tribal conflicts would asphyxiate without the necessary funds.

When I searched for “Afghanistan” the Iran Pipeline case-study came up because in the building of the pipeline that stretches from India to Iran, the regional politics and conflicts, most notably in Kashmir and Afghanistan, could jeopardize the future of the pipeline, or the pipeline could serve as common grounds for dialogue.

When “opium” was searched, two case-studies were found, Mexdefor and Opium. The case-study of Mexican deforestation stated that thousands of acres were being illegally logged and used to harvest marijuana and opium, which sell for hundreds of millions of dollars in the United States. The environmental aspect of this problem is that as the land is being used for this cash crop, reforestation has not happened and the plant and animal life indigenous to the area are disappearing, erosion is becoming a problem, and the culture of the Tarhumara Indian tribe is threatened.

The Opium case-study is primarily about the cultural impact of opium and heroin production in Burma, coupled with the environmental issues of erosion, deforestation, and water pollution. There is a critical problem with the alarmingly high rates of young people being admitted to emergency rooms for use of the drugs. Equally disturbing is the fact that the oppressive Burmese government engaged in the drug trade in order to fund the purchase of military equipment.

Part Two
When I did a categorical search for Agriculture in a regional scope, nine case-studies were produced. The Mohawk case discussed the smuggling of illegal cigarettes across the Canadian border into the United States. The Israelh2 case-study touched on the issue of conflict as a possible result of Israel’s claim to vast water resources in the water-depraved Middle East. The other cases mostly reflected environmental hazards of erosion or pollution, or the regional claims to the production of “cultural products,” and these cases were of little relevance to my topic.

Most cases on the Middle East dealt either with oil or the extermination of a plant or animal species. The oil cases are relevant in that the governments are able to create a rentier economy based on their oil wealth and in Afghanistan, there is great potential for a similar situation with the poppies. However, oil is an internationally sanctioned commodity and in a much higher demand than opium. The true similarities in these cases lies in the way in which income is generate and then disbursed. In both societies the elite individuals who control the valuable commodity also control the polity of the area. Such decentralization of power undermines the effectiveness of a central power, and displaces an incentive to levy taxes. Taxes can not be levied properly if the country is divided into two clear categories: the wealthy commodity producers who can side-step the law, and the indigent peasants who don’t have enough money to pay the taxes. Taxes are an essential part of the creation of civil society and the paucity of such is a feature Afghanistan shares with many countries in the region.

The case study of the Iranian nuclear weapons development is relevant because it addresses issues of security and the production of illegal goods. The case study of Iraqi Sanctions is also politically relevant, as it discusses the crisis that arises when a population is left in poverty. Ecological damage, such as the contamination of water and unsanitary waste disposal, has resulted from the poverty resultant from the Saddam Hussein’s death-grip on power. The cost of this power in terms of human lives was also devastatingly high. Although Afghanistan does not run the same risk in terms of having one the most brutal dictators, there exists a danger power void that is resultant from the highly volatile society which is underpinned by the abuse and misuse of agricultural development technology. It all goes back to the ability of the people to be self-sufficient food providers.

In 2000, the production of opiate initially dropped from its 1999 peak of 45,000 tons to 185 tons because of the Taliban’s declaration that drugs were “un-Islamic”. However, the fatwa did only applied to the planting of opium, not its trade. Previously the regime had levied a 10% tax on the production of poppies, but with the implementation of the fatwa, the tax was adjusted to reflect the reality of the situation – a 20% tax on the trade of opium offset the losses incurred by the elimination of legal production (and taxation) of poppies.

Central Asia was first used as an opium route in the early 1990’s, when the Soviet border guards were removed. Heroin first appeared in local traffic in 1995, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and has steady increased in quantity and importance ever since. The number of drug users in Central Asia is thought to be 400,000 –a six-fold increase since the 1990’s. Almost 1% of the population over 15 uses opium, three times more than in western Europe. Heroin addictions have brought with it a wave of prostitution – and some protégés as young as 11 years old. The combination of dirty needles and unregulated sex workers has led to an uncontrollable spread of AIDS and HIV.

The withdrawal of Soviet border guards from Central Asian states, and the 1992-1997 Tajikistan civil war, provided a good outlet for Afghanistan’s most lucrative crop. One of the main reasons the drug trade has flourished is the poverty of the region. Eighty percent of Tajik’s live in poverty, and the drug trade provides a source of quick and substantial income. To make the problem even more complex and systemic, many of the politicians’ main supporters are drug lords. The Tajikistan’s Ambassador to Kazakhstan was caught twice with heroin – once 63kg of it – before he was expelled. Ironically enough, Tajikistan’s trade minister was also caught red-handed with 24 kg of heroin. Although recent measure to crack down on the drug trade have been somewhat effective, they have truly succeeded in only catching the “small fish.” The puppeteers who pull the strings, or the members of parliament and diplomats that have immunity, certainly does not help in the effort for a comprehension scheme of eradication.

Tajikistan:
Tajikistan is affected by this rise in local traffic more than any other country. It shares 875 miles of porous border with Afghanistan. By way of contrasts, in 1996 the authorities intercepted 6.5 kg of opium; in 2002, they intercepted four tons of opium – 80% of the regional total. It is speculated that as much as 80 tons of opium might have passed through the region in 2002.

Where ever the drug goes, it leaves a trail of users behind. Increasingly, opium is being processed into a high quality, pure heroin within Afghanistan, making it more readily usable for its consumers along en route. Central Asia has had the fastest growing heroin addiction in the world, and in children as young as 10 years old. In Dushanbe, the number of overdoses as a result of purer forms of heroin has shot up. $5-8, still a considerable sum in Central Asia, will buy a gram of heroin. The capital city has an estimated 20,000 heroin junkies, many who use and reuse needles multiple times a day, every day. As a result, the number of HIV cases has also skyrocketed. One NGO provides counseling to those who seek to end their drug addiction, but it also supplies up to 3,000 clean syringes per day, in an effort to curb the spread of HIV.

Unfortunately, there is little help available to those who want to quit. Victoria, a 22 year old girl, started using heroin at age 18. She was in and out of rehab three times. The sole treatment she was provided with was sleeping pills and being locked up. She claims to be clean for the past six months, and now she works at an NGO in Dushanbe distributing needles and providing moral support for other who want to quit.

Tajikistan’s border guards have been better equipped and more effectively trained to deal with drug trafficking, although many are under-paid and can be bought off by traffickers.
However, as a reflection of President Rakhmonov’s commitment to curtailing the opium traffic, the legal penalties can be quite severe. Violators can receive prison sentences that reach 15 to 20 years, or even the death penalty. The International Crisis Group reported that in the southern Tajik province of Khatlon near the Afghan border, President Rakhmonov threatened to deport entire villages if even a single citizen was caught trafficking drugs.

Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan now monitors its border with Tajikistan with heavily armed guards and landmines. Air and train traffic between the two countries has been cut off, party in an effort to curb drug trafficking. But border guards can be bought off, and if not, there are always plenty of rugged mountain terrain that is impossible to monitor and guard. The average policeman earns $20/month, so corruption is very high. Traffickers typically swallow between 50 and 100 grams of heroin, in capsules that are later regurgitated. Each shipment garners $50 to $100, as well as the risk of the capsules breaking and killing the trafficker. Some traffickers even swallows a kilo of heroin, and later he must have his stomach cut open to remove the shipment.

The state-run rehabilitation clinics in Uzbekistan are notoriously under-funded and ill-equipped. Most addicts avoid them for fear of arrest. The private institutions that do exist are often too expensive for the average Uzbek. Some blame the uncertain post-Soviet morale and economy for the rise of an addiction that was virtually unknown during the Soviet era.

In October of 2002 Iran challenged the UN and Europe to take on the cultivation of poppy in Afghanistan. It reported an 18 increase that year over the previous year. A kilogram of heroin sells for approximately $50 in western markets. 70% to 90% of the heroin in Western Europe originates in Afghanistan.

Mohamed Sadeg, a farmer in Eastern Afghanistan, grows poppies instead of traditional staples such as wheat, cucumber or cauliflower. His reasons for it are simple economics; opium needs much less water than most crops, and the region has been suffering a drought for several years. The irrigation system is also abysmal, so whatever water they do have may not be used most effectively. Opium generates income up to 30 times that of the same amount of wheat. Additionally, farmers are paid for the opium up front, before the harvest, then the drug-lords come to the fields to collect the crop, thus eliminating the farmer’s work and finance of transporting the crop. Mr. Hani Hanovi says that he grows opium to support his family – he has a large family and it’s the only way to earn enough money to support them. No one buys cauliflower, he claims. Mr. Sadeg is aware of the damage opium is doing to the Afghan and neighboring societies, and he insists he does not do it to kill people. He wants to leave the opium growing business, but he sees no other way to support his family. When asked if he had ever sampled his crop, he replied that he was not interested –and he couldn’t afford it anyway

A doctor and the village elder of Boymalasi, in Badakhshan, was an outspoken critic of poppy cultivation last year. This year, he is growing poppies himself. Mullahs cultivate poppy crops themselves. They admit that it is morally very bad, but they also say it is an emergency situation. They have borrowed money and sold their household possessions, yet they still don’t have enough to eat. They regret their actions, but recognize the utter necessity of them in order to live. In some villages, 100% of the population is growing poppies. Some people do not harbor the same moral reservations of the mullahs. One man, Ghulam Mohammed, has lived almost his entire life in a one room house, farming wheat on a small plot of land, and trying to support a family of ten. By growing poppies last year, he earned 30 times more than he ever did growing wheat, and was finally, at age 60, about to add three more rooms onto his house.

26. Trans-Boundary Issues:

Uzbekistan

Tajikstan

Turkmenistan

Taliban, by Ahmed Rashid, thoroughly covers the role of the Taliban in the drug trade and the agricultural development of Afghanistan. This book will also provide the general historical background for life under the Taliban and the conditions that led to the rise of the Taliban.

Drugs, Oil and War (War and Peace Library Series): The United States in Afghanistan, Columbia and China by Peter Dale Scott addresses the issues of drug trade and conflict in Afghanistan.