INTRODUCTION

The above paraphrases from The New York Times describe the opium situation in Afghanistan. These articles depict the current opium debacle in Afghanistan very well. However, the irony is the articles were published over three decades ago, in November 1972 and May 1973. Back then Afghanistan was only one stop along the hippie trail to get high.

Much has changed since that time, but one thing remains the same: Afghan drugs -- literally -- are to die for! Today, "Black Afghan" -- the commercial name for Afghan hashish ("chars") -- can be readily found in Dutch cafes in Holland. Afghan drugs, whether hashish or an opium derivative, are flooding the global underground markets and securing Afghanistan the title of largest producer and exporter of drugs. This article provides a brief sketch of the opium phenomenon in Afghanistan.

OPIUM AND AFGHANISTAN

Background

Cannabis and opium were not part of Afghanistan's natural flora but rather originally imported into Afghanistan from the European continent. According to MacDonald and Mansfield (2001), "Alexander the Great is reputed to have introduced cannabis into Afghanistan over 2000 years ago and since then the use of charas (hashish) has been common" (P. 3). The Greeks are also believed to have introduced raw opium to Afghanistan. During the first century A.D, Andromachus invented the Greek word theriaka (meaning opium remedy), and until today, speakers of the Dari (Classical Persian) language use the word "tareyak" for opium.

First Market In Iran

MacDonald (1992) explains: "Though opium had been cultivated and used in Iran since the eleventh century, its usage became a major problem in the early twentieth century. Addiction grew at such a raid pace that by the 1950s the number of addicts was estimated to be over a million. In 1955, the [Reza] Shah's government banned poppy cultivation" (P.61-67).

During this time, Afghan opium traffickers entered the Iranian opium market. Even when the Iranian government changed its policy and allowed some regulated opium cultivation supplying only addicts, Afghan opium production continued to grow and find a niche in the Iranian underground markets. Until the early 1970s, Iran was the major opium market for Afghan smugglers' despite Iran's death penalty for drug trafficking.

Hippie Trail

At this time, a new market opening also bolstered national tourism that is drug tourism:

"Afghan involvement in the international drug trade commenced in the 1970s when large numbers of Westerners descended on the Asia country to 'drop out' and 'turn on' inexpensively. At one point, before the 1973 coup [by Prince Mohammad Daoud], an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 hippies lived in Kabul" (MacDonald, 1992, P.61-67).

According to MacDonald & Mansfield (2001), Kabul's Chicken Street (Kocha-e Morgha) became a popular stopover for those on the overland 'hippie trail' to the East wanting to take pleasure in hashish and opium. As Pound (2001) reveals from Terence Burke, the former No. 2 official in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that even:

"[former king] Zahir Shah's inner circle was heavily involved in drug trafficking during the early 1970s, even using his official government airplane to smuggle hashish to Italy … information came from reliable informers and also from Sardar Sultan [Mahmud] Ghazi [former Director of National Aviation], who he described as a first cousin of the king" (P.20).

The partaking in smuggling by persons in position of power is nothing new. The article by Ferrell (1992) explains how they sometimes continue even in exile such as the brother of Reza Shah of Iran who was arrested in Los Angeles on charges of smuggling and possession of opium. Nonetheless, after the overthrow of the monarchy in Afghanistan, the new government of President Daoud tightened visa controls forcing many hippies to depart Afghanistan.

Opium War

In 1979 Iran underwent an Islamic Revolution and Afghanistan was invaded by the Soviet Union. During the period of disorder in Iran, domestic opium cultivation rose:

"Iran alone is churning out an estimated 600 tons per year of opium gum, the raw material from which heroin is made. Pakistan is producing another 500 tons, Afghanistan 300 tons. That amounts to more than a fivefold increase in Mideast heroin production in the last five years, and the output continues to swell" (Kelly, 1979, P. 24).

With the loss of drug tourism following by the blocked Afghan-Iranian traditional smuggling routes by the Soviets and by even harsher drug enforcement in Iran, the Afghan opium export to the Iranian market shrank considerably. MacDonald (1992) explains:

"Cut off from the Iranian market, Afghan traffickers rapidly learned to refine opium into heroin as they discovered new outlets in Europe and North America … Though small amounts reached Western Europe and North America via Pakistan, those markets were largely supplied with heroin from Southeast Asia. The situation changed when the fall of the governments of Vietnam and Laos in the early and mid-1970s disrupted a link between the Golden Triangle of Burma, Thailand, and Laos and the United States. As a result greater demand was placed on the Golden Crescent countries, especially Afghanistan and Pakistan" (P.61-67).

According to Girardet (1988), by the late 1980s, the Golden Crescent countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran) were accountable for at least 30 percent of the United State heroin market. As a result of increased foreign demand for opium, Afghanistan gained ground on Pakistan and Iran and surpassed them in production in the 1980s:

"The reasons for Afghanistan's increased production include: lack of government control in much of the countryside during the nine-year war against Soviet occupation; crackdowns in cultivation in Pakistan, which have made Afghanistan a safer bet; Tehran's apparent willingness to allow trafficking through Iran; and growing demand in neighboring Pakistan and the West…Narcotics from eastern and northern Afghanistan and Pakistan's borders areas are channeled to Karachi; those from southern Afghanistan go toward Iran" (Girardet, 1988, P. 1).

Most of the opium smuggled out of Afghanistan was refined into heroin in western Iran and southern and eastern Turkey (Randal, 1978). The instability in Pakistan contributed to easier smuggling of opium across the borders:

"…[T]he legendary Khyber Pass in the no man's land between Pakistan and Afghanistan, Landi Kotal has been a smuggler's town for more than 2,000 years. Goods ranging from exquisitely finished, handmade copies of guns from around the world to videocassette recorders and narcotics are bought and sold here" (Kline, 1982, P.1).

According to Kline (1982), since heroin was preferred to opium in the West, primitive bathtub laboratories sprung up throughout the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. In addition, the first laboratories were perhaps set up in Afghanistan during this time since the government was starting to seize morphine- the first product in converting opium to heroin (Auerbach, 1979).

First Blowback: Drugs for War

According to Sciolino (1989), although mujahidin guerrilla leaders have repeatedly promised the US that they would crack down on the drug trade, it is an open secret that some guerrilla commanders have used opium profits to help finance their operations against the Afghan government. The situation became drastic when U.S. overt funds to the guerillas were allegedly ceased in 1991 because commanders increased opium production further to raise revenue for their operations (Evans, 1991).

A year after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Rashid (1990) reported a story which would predict the future of Afghanistan:

"Afghanistan's President Najibullah has skillfully played on Western fears of a drugs epidemic by repeatedly offering co-operation with the DEA and other anti- narcotic agencies, but the West, which still insists on his downfall, has refused. If President [George Herbert] Bush and Margaret Thatcher continue to reject a peace process, they must prepare for an invasion of Afghan-grown heroin in Washington and London … If Afghanistan fragments into warlordism, the West can expect a flood of cheap heroin that will be impossible to stop" (P.17).

That is exactly what happened in the 1992 when the government was handed over. Evans (1991) explains that many guerrilla commanders became drug traffickers after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. By the end of 1991, one third of Pakistan's heroin laboratories were moved across the border to the Afghan provinces of Nangahar and Helmand (Evans, 1991). According to Raghavan (1996), most of the Afghan opium was processed into heroin along the Pakistan-Afghan border or in Turkey after into was smuggled out either through Iran, Turkmenistan or Tajikistan: "The U.N. Drug Control Program (UNDCP) estimates that 240 tons of heroin with a street value of $ 75 billion landed in the West last year [1995] from Afghanistan" (P. 4).

Second Blowback: Mullah Marketing

Dynes (1996) explained that the Taliban originally swore to cleanse Afghanistan of the "poisoned poppy" but wars are expensive and very soon after the Taliban issued a levy of ten percent tax on the crop, whereas the Islamic Republic of Iran summarily executes growers and traffickers. Bartholet and LeVine (1999) however cited another potential reason given the Taliban's often harsh anti-Western rhetoric:

"Some suspect the Taliban of an ulterior motive in its drug policy: poisoning infidels. But Afghan drugs likely are harming at least as many Muslims as non-Muslims. In Pakistan, addicts either shoot up or chase the dragon by smoking opium, and Iran has a swelling population of more than 1 million drug abusers. Although addiction is a problem in parts of Afghanistan, it's not widespread, so opium farmers don't often see the human damage of their trade." (P. 40).

On February 24, 2001, the Taliban's cut back in the opium harvest was seen as a market tactic to push up export prices in order to generate more revenue (The Economist, 2001). According to a report by the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Taliban prohibition had indeed caused "the beginning of a heroin shortage in Europe by the end of 2001" (Agence France Presse, 2002). The externality was felt domestically in Afghanistan with major socioeconomic implications:

"[T]he ban brought drastic economic and social consequences to the poppy-growing areas, with some families selling their very young daughters into early marriage to pay off debts ... Some families were so desperate they were given their daughters away in marriage before puberty, to collect the traditional bride price paid by the groom's family" (Beattie, 2001, P.18).

Third Blowback: Opium Re-emerges

In fall of 2001 forces of the international coalition unseated the Taliban and installed the Afghan Interim Authority. The new government seems destined to fall without continued political and economic assistance from abroad because there is bitter infighting among allied warlords for power in the central authority or against it and forces of the underground drug economy. Faqiri and Ibrahimi (2004) explain:

"Regional warlords and their local commanders profit from drug trafficking, using the abundant cash to bankroll their private armies. In doing so, they weaken the power of the Karzai government in the provinces."

Opium production is also assumed to be financing some of the outlawed forces or terrorist movements such as the Taliban and Al-Qaida (McGirk, 2004). The Minister of Rural Reconstruction, Hanif Atmar, puts the annual opium economy in perspective: "Equal to all the money we have for reconstruction" (Greenway, 2004, P. A11).

Afghanistan is also a landlocked country with very little infrastructure and is recovering from multiple years of drought as well as major shortages of food, clothing, shelter and medical care. Nonetheless, most Afghans live in rural Afghanistan where they earn their living in agricultural crops littered by landmines. Wheat is the main crop, but barley, corn, cotton, fruits, nuts, rice, sugar beets, and vegetables are also grown. Agricultural production is limited by the lack of modern farm equipment, fertilizer, water, and good quality seeds. Unfortunately, Afghanistan's chief agricultural exports are an illicit crop, opium poppy:

"… [T]he export of opium and its derivates, which yielded about $2.5 billion last year, now accounts for half of Afghanistan's GDP. Production is fast recovering to its 1999 record level" (The Economist, 2003).

In fact, Afghanistan is the world's largest opium producer, which in turn is used to make heroin. "Provinces that never grew poppies are growing them now" explained President Hamid Karzai recently (Greenway, 2004, P. A11). According to the newspaper Iqtidari-Milli (2004), some of these areas include the following: Takhar, Badakhshan, Samangan, Jowzjan, Bamiyan, Daikundi, and Uruzgan. Zakaria (2004) outlines the immediate affect of this phenomenon:

"[T]he trade is now moving from opium to heroin, which means that it's connected with international cartels, crime and big money. The amounts of cash involved dwarf government revenues, and corruption has infected every aspect of Afghan political life".

Recent 2004 estimates reveal that 1 million habitual drug users, equivalent to four percent of the population have appeared in Afghanistan as a result of the thousands of addicts that were part of the three million refugees who return from Iran and Pakistan (The Economist, 2004).

In light of these facts, President Karzai declared a jihad (holy war) against drug cultivation. However, Jackson (2004) reports that the jihad against opium production is not working as a record harvest is expected in 2004:

"Robert Charles, a narcotics expert from the US State Department, says that 300,000 acres of opium poppies will be harvested, 30 percent more than the previous highest" (P. 13).

Besides the constant influence of warlords and drug barons, some other setbacks in the President's jihad include an earlier British plan to buy the opium crop in certain areas backfired as farmers starting switching from food production to opium in anticipation of the buyouts (Marozzi, 2004). Also, another American effort of donating wheat drove down the prices of local wheat growers and encouraging them to farm opium stead (Greenway, 2004). Furthermore, another setback was the delay in the eradication program started only after the major crops were harvested. So, some scorched and unusual opium crops were only destroyed in symbolic fashion (Faqiri and Ibrahimi, 2004).

CONCLUSION

Some hoped that the warlords and drug barons of the underground economy would not interfere in Afghanistan's quest towards democracy, law and justice, drug eradication, demilitarization and the upcoming elections. To the contrary, on April 1, 2004 a US Congressional Hearing was informed that the poppy production might result in "a cancer that spreads and undermines all we are otherwise achieving in the areas of democracy, stability, and anti-terrorism and the rule of law" (Franco, 2004). According to Zakaria (2004), the main obstacle was not Afghans but US policy makers:

"U.S. policy toward Afghanistan is now on the right track. America and its allies are extending security outside Kabul, helping to build up the Afghan Army and police, weakening the warlords, strengthening the central government, funding reconstruction projects, offering farmers alternatives to opium. But it might be too late. Instability is rampant, the drug trade is flourishing and the warlords are entrenched".

The fear is that warlords and drug barons could determine Afghanistan's first free and fair Presidential and National Assembly elections. Recent history and the facts portray that a narco-state might evolve where the CEOs of the underground economy and Kalashnikov culture hijack the future of Afghanistan.

References