Opium in Afghanistan

On Tuesday, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime released its 2007 World Drug Report. (This link is to a PDF file 7 Meg in size.) Here are some excerpts from the report on the exploding growth of opium production in Afghanistan.

* Opium production, while significant, is now highly concentrated in Afghanistan's southern provinces. Indeed, the Helmand province is on the verge of becoming the world's biggest drug supplier, with the dubious distinction of cultivating more drugs than entire countries such as Myanmar, Morocco or even Colombia. Curing Helmand of its drug and insurgency cancer will rid the world of the most dangerous source of its most dangerous narcotic, and go a long way to bringing security to the region.

* Around 92 per cent of the world’s heroin comes from poppies grown in Afghanistan.

* Opium production in Afghanistan rose almost 50 per cent in 2006, bringing gobal heroin production to a new record high of 606 mt in 2006, exceeding the previous high (576 mt in 1999) by 5 per cent.

* There are indications that a small but increasing proportion of opiates from Afghanistan are being trafficked to North America, either via eastern and western Africa, or via Europe.

* Countries experiencing an increase in heroin usage include those surrounding Afghanistan (Pakistan, Iran and Central Asia), as well as Russia, India and parts of Africa.

* It would appear that Afghans are involved in bringing the drug out of Afghanistan. From there, the heroin may change hands to Kyrgyz or Kazakh nationals until reaching Kazakhstan, and thereafter Kazakh or Russian groups transport it to Russia. It would appear that Kyrgyz and Kazakh nationals are reliant on the Tajik and Uzbek groups to provide the drugs for further trafficking. In general, transport through the transit zone often appears to be controlled by the nationals of the transit zone, with border crossings involving groups of both states.

* The increasing number of heroin laboratories dismantled in Afghanistan and the virtual disappearance of heroin laboratories from the statistics of other countries on the trafficking route seems to confirm that Afghan opium is increasingly being processed into morphine and heroin within Afghanistan.

* In 2006, out of all opiates that left Afghanistan, 53 per cent went via Iran, 33 per cent via Pakistan and 15 per cent via Central Asia (mainly Tajikistan). If only heroin and morphine are considered, the bulk is estimated to have left Afghanistan via Pakistan (48%), followed by Iran (31%) and Central Asia (21%).

The route from Afghanistan continues to go mainly via Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and the Balkan countries to distribution centres in West Europe. However, alternative routes have also been established to circumvent the border between Turkey and Bulgaria, some via Ukraine to Romania and along the Balkan route to West Europe.

* There is a strong basis to believe that most of the heroin produced in Afghanistan moves out via Iran and Pakistan toward Europe on what is known as the Balkan Route.

* As is the case everywhere, farmers require credit in order to survive, and one of the primary sources of these micro-loans appears to be opium traders. Landless farmers must lease the land they wish to till, and are even more credit dependent. Credit is extended by opium traders – including shopkeepers, bazaar traders, and itinerant traders – to be repaid in opium.

As mentioned above, Helmand Province is a center for opium production, and the map on pdf page 206 of the document illustrates just how many districts in that province are heavily into cultivating opium. The British are in this sector, and there is frequent violence with the Taliban, evidence of just how motivated the Taliban are to protect their cash crop.

Michael Yon had a couple of must-read article at NRO on the Taliban and opium in Afghanistan. See here and here. A couple of excerpts:

Experts who study the calculus of the narcotics trade know that the problem is growing out of control in Afghanistan because every additional poppy lanced for its opium unleashes an oozing flow of black-market dollars. Those dollars are not taxed by the Kabul government, but by the virtual government of the Taliban. Perversely, poppy farmers grow poorer with each successively larger crop, because their bounty boosts supplies while driving prices lower, and they need to grow more each year just to stay even.

The connections between a tacit acceptance of fertile poppy farms and the growing menace of a resurgent and ever vigorous Taliban form a Gordian knot that threatens to doom the mission to rebuild Afghanistan. The reliance on poppy farming does more than tie much of the population in the south to a black economy; it diminishes their need for and confidence in legitimate government systems, while simultaneously forcing them to turn to the Taliban for security and access to markets.... The outlook doesn’t need to be this dire in Afghanistan. Even the Taliban was able to eradicate poppy for one year (General McCaffrey’s understanding is that they were suppressing supply in order to maintain margins). And Afghan farmers are hardly committed to some sort of agricultural jihad to destroy kids in the West. But years of warfare coinciding with decades of drought devastated not just the land here; they also wiped out much of the connection people had to it as farmers, and much of their collective knowledge base dissipated like dust. Farmers simply want to plant the most profitable crops, and since Afghanistan is one of poppy’s favorite climates, illiterate farmers can grow it with ease.

Afghanistan Watch has some thoughts on the report as well.