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VIEW: Drug problem in Afghanistan —Syed Mohammad Ali

It is not that Afghans are themselves oblivious to the consequences of opium production. There are obvious signs of how drug use is increasingly affecting the country itself. Yet such is the state of affairs in the country that opium cultivation seems an increasingly viable solution to almost two million farming households struggling to survive

Across our north-western borders lies a country due to which we have received much strategic attention in the 1980s and again since 9/11. The effects of the lingering turmoil in Afghanistan have pervaded all aspects of life there. They have now started manifesting themselves in terms of agricultural production as well. Opium poppy is being grown in Afghanistan over more area than ever before.

The current year has seen a two-thirds increase in opium cultivation. While Pakistan is understandably first to cringe about this fact, and implications of more drugs seeping across our long and porous border, many parts of the developed world, too, are vulnerable on account of being lucrative consumer markets for drugs. Increasing quantities of opium and heroin from Afghanistan are being smuggled to be sold on the streets in Russia and Europe. BBC claims that 90 percent of the heroin available on Britain’s streets can be traced to opium being grown in Afghanistan. The UN estimates that Afghanistan is currently supplying 87 percent of the world’s total opium.

Drug production has been a growing problem in Afghanistan for a while now. With the current round of war it has grown by record proportions. Ironically, it was only during the Taliban’s five-year rule that drug production declined. The United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan estimates that poppy has been grown over almost 1,300 square kilometres this year — an all time high. The UN is worried that Afghanistan can become a ‘narco-state’. The fears are based on the Afghanistan Opium Survey 2004 which claims that no less than 10 percent of Afghans are estimated to be involved in the business. In 2003, the trade in opium was calculated to be worth $2.8 billion. This represents more than 60 percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product. So in the devastated country opium provides the very basis for economic sustenance.

Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries on earth. At the individual level, destitute farmers may have little option but to cultivate poppy. Rural areas across Afghanistan have been ravaged by years of warfare. Growing opium is the easiest way for the battered people to make some money, since opium is a lucrative cash crop. The farmers themselves receive less than half a percent of the wealth generated by the crops. Most of the revenue ends up with local influentials. This ensures the facilitation of its production. Also, opium provides a low-risk and relatively feasible occupation to both big smugglers and small time dealers. While some small-time dealers get caught and are imprisoned, the big smugglers remain beyond the authorities’ reach.

Kabul has now recruited the Central Poppy Eradication Force. It remains to be seen how effective the new recruits can be in taking on the remotely-located hardened warlords with real economic interests at stake. The international community does not consider the Afghan government capable of tackling the problem alone. The UN has called on the US and NATO-led forces to carry out military operations against drug traffickers. Washington is expected to spend an extra $780 million in the next financial year to eradicate poppy cultivation. Yet if these efforts turn into a Colombian-style war on drugs, the violence could further escalate in Afghanistan.

Given the political situation in the country, stricter law enforcement is clearly not sufficient. Yet even the UN has so far spent more money on monitoring the poppy crop than it has paid farmers to help them grow alternative crops. Afghan farmers need to be provided real alternatives.

The development agency, Spirit Aid, offers an interesting solution by offering to replace Afghan opium with industrial hemp which is considered both economically and environmentally viable in Afghanistan. Hemp is a fast growing, legal cash crop which could provide a potentially lucrative source of foreign exchange earnings. Hemp can also be used to produce heating and cooking fuel and might help end the need for cutting down and burning the scant forest cover during Afghanistan’s severe winters. The hemp fruit combines the nutritional qualities of soya, oily fish and wheat. Strawberries and asparagus can be produced alongside hemp. Hemp is currently being grown for various purposes in more than 30 countries, including some European Union countries as well as developing countries like Thailand. However the World Bank imposes many restrictions to inhibit the crop. These include a clause in loan agreements stating that the borrowing country must not cultivate hemp as a resource.

It is not that Afghans are themselves oblivious to the consequences of opium production. There are obvious signs of how drug use is increasingly affecting the country itself. Yet such is the state of affairs in the country that opium cultivation seems an increasingly viable solution to almost two million farming households struggling to survive.

The Americans are paying a heavy price for abandoning Afghanistan after using it as an ideally remote arena for waging a proxy war against the Soviets. Abandoning it again would be still worse, not only for the Americans but also for many European countries where drug abuse is already a serious problem. Security implications aside, increasing availability of opium will have a detrimental social impact across many parts of the world including of course within and around what is already one of the most dangerous countries.

The writer is a researcher with diverse experience in the development sector. He can be reached at syedmohdali555@yahoo.com

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