Opium trafficking in Afghanistan

Tuesday Jul 29 2008 13:25

At least one part of the Afghan economy is doing well. Unfortunately, it is the part involved in the illegal production of opium and related narcotics. In the latest sign of just how entrenched the business has become, the United Nations has warned that drug traffickers are now importing chemists from surrounding countries to produce heroin inside the country.

Afghanistan now supplies more than 90 per cent of the world's heroin, according to the UN, and if production falls modestly this year it will have nothing to do with the policy of the Afghan government or of its international partners. In fact, there is no policy - or, to be more precise, there are 100 policies barely co-ordinated among the myriad foreign and local actors there.

Certainly the foreign military contingents in the country want nothing to do with counternarcotics. With the US and its Nato partners engaged in a programme to win hearts and minds, the last thing they want is to alienate people by eradicating the source of their livelihoods. Yet there is no doubt that the poppy trade is an important source of revenues for the Taliban and other insurgents trying to overthrow the elected government of President Hamid Karzai.
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