Flower of discord

Economic and Political Weekly, 2019

The fight against opium poppy production in Manipur can be won only if economically viable alternatives are provided to farmers, who are hitherto excluded from development initiatives in the state.

isara solutions, 2023

The present review article studies and issues the wars of drugs that have been going on in the state, 'Manipur'. It identifies the problems of drugs trafficking and illegal plantation of various poppy crops and opium in remote hilly areas in Manipur. This paper observes that most of the people that grows the drugs plants are identified as economically disadvantaged hilly people and they have been used by rich merchants and businessmen of illegal drug trade. The Manipur state government put great emphasis on the destruction of poppy plantation and drug trafficking including drones however since the penetration is restricted, the works they have put up for the destruction of crops is not fully attained. This article provides a review of how Manipur is increasing its growth in the drugs trafficking and how inexpensive and accessible the drugs are available in state against various efforts made to restrict and destruct the poppy cultivation.

2019

Global opium production has peaked in 2017 at more than 10,000 tons out of which ninety percent originate from Afghanistan; never before the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime has recorded a higher production. Afghanistan has become the world-market leader in opium production in recent times that historically only the British Empire had surpassed as China’s prime supplier prior to the mid-19th-century Opium Wars. Major differences exist between both situations: Then the dominant superpower engaged in major drug-dealings; nowadays a poor country such as Afghanistan has gained a dominant position in production but not in profit-making. Nearly half a century after Richard Nixon’s declaration of a ‘war on drugs’ we find a global constellation where Asian players such as Afghanistan and Myanmar supply the world with more opium than the combined demand that existed many decades ago. Both countries gained the reputation of having the lowest seizure rates for contraband and rarely claim trafficking interceptions. The spending of 611 billion US dollars on US-led military activities in Afghanistan since 9/11 has this country made the prime focus of alert for containing insurgencies and fighting Taliban-style terrorism; more than two fifths of all US spending for security issues was allocated in Afghanistan. The US administration allocated 64 billion US dollars for civilian projects of reconstruction and infrastructure development in Afghanistan after defeating the Taliban government in October 2001. Despite all these efforts Afghanistan has grown to become the leading supplier of opiates to the end-user markets only after 9/11; an environment where the interests of various players can meet must have emerged and produced most favorable conditions for poppy cultivation, its processing into opium and heroin, and trafficking with high profits. International organizations have invested in eradication programs and attempted to replace poppy cultivation for other crops in order to break the nexus of drugs and war. Pacification strategies have been directed towards food security or licit cash crop production. Despite spending nearly nine billion US dollars for counternarcotics programs between 2002 and 2017, the general trend of expansive drug production and ample supply to the world market could not be stopped. As Afghanistan had reached an all-time climax in poppy cultivation in 2017, the same year recorded only an eradication of 750 hectares, less than a fifth of a percent compared to the area where poppy is grown. Different actors and factors seem to shape relations in a complex triangle of producers, processors and traffickers in one corner, power brokers, warlords, arms and drug dealers in another, both confronted and connected with representatives of international organizations, border regimes and the world market. How could Afghanistan emerge from oblivion to gain such a prime standing in cultivating and processing poppy (Papaver somniferum) and its derivates like morphine and heroin? How could illicit poppy cultivation become such a persistent and dominant cash crop in Afghanistan across all changes of governance and international relations? What factors allow expanding and sustaining the value chain of opiates from Asian to global markets?

1993

Given the current desperate state of both the counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency efforts in Afghanistan, there is little to lose in trying to implement Poppy for Medicine in the country. This proposal foresees the local production of an Afghan brand of morphine to boost the rural economy and diversify it over time. Poppy for Medicine does not pretend to completely wipe out illegal opium production. Instead, it aims to integrate as many poppy farmers as possible within the legal economy and cut off the biggest possible amount of income from the Taliban’s funding base.

This chapter is to describe the problem of growing, processing and traffic of illicit drugs in Afghanistan with a realistic look at its social causes and effects along with a brief history of opium and cannabis production in Afghanistan. With such a background, the implications of opium problem on any plan to help rebuild and restructure Afghanistan's economy can be better understood as the general view of the authors is to redirect the agricultural potentials in north Afghanistan towards a healthy stage that can lead to near self-sufficiency in provision of food for the area's residents.

Cognizance Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies (CJMS), 2023

This article discusses the variables that contribute to drug trafficking and usage in Afghanistan as well as the illegal drug cultivation taking place there, the money generated there, the financial advantages of using drugs, the international market, and these aspects. The prevention of drug-related crimes and measures to stop drug usage and trafficking in Afghanistan have also been mentioned.

Opium poppy cultivation and drug trafficking have eroded Afghanistan’s fragile political and economic order over the last decades. Notwithstanding the ongoing counternarcotics efforts by the Afghan government, the United States and other allies, Afghan remains the source of over 90 percent of the world’s illicit opium production (Blanchard 2009). Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is widespread across the provinces of the country, with a large part of the population benefiting from its production, processing, and trafficking. Many researchers attribute the booming state of opium economy in Afghanistan to weak governance, strong local warlords, years of war and the obvious impoverishment of the population. While government suffers the ugly effects of these problems including capacity incapacitation and conflicting tensions in policy choices, it is the overwhelming believe of the stakeholders in the Afghanistan post war reconstruction project that the opium poppy production undermines the country’s economy and sovereignty which in turn, weakens efforts to build an effective, accountable national state (Felbab-Brown 2007: 2). This is the reason for the foundation and application of an array of proposals under the umbrella approach called ‘counternarcotics strategy’. However, can the application of the plan effectively suppress the opium boom in poverty stricken, politically volatile and local warlords dominated Afghanistan? Importantly, are the benefits of suppression of illicit opium much more than the benefits derivable from its licit production for the much needed medicinal purposes? This paper argues that since counternarcotics policies are frequently of limited effectiveness in suppressing illicit drug production, licencing of opium poppy production in Afghanistan for useful medicinal and other useful purposes will have positive national development impacts, and that, it is much more cost-effective in achieving these outcomes. This is because, since the state would no longer have to engage itself in the herculean task of eliminating the population’s means of livelihoods in the licensed areas, the hostility of the population to the government would be drastically reduced and then, the legitimacy of the state would be enhanced. The paper holds the view that the benefits accruable from legitimizing opium production in Afghanistan, backed by stringent bureaucratic and legal measures are likely to outweigh the difficulties associated with the current ineffective but costly control measures. Therefore, given the robust evidence of the importance of opium production in the Afghan’s microeconomic sector, attempt at its forceful suppression, is counterproductive and inimical to the country’s stability and economic growth.