War on terror worsens war on drugs
Opium production flourishes after defeat of Taliban
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The downfall of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and the rise of Northern
Alliance forces have led to a resumption in opium cultivation in the
country. The shift in control over the drug trade will alter trafficking
patterns, bolstering the opium trade through Central Asia to Russia and
increasing the quantity of heroin and morphine destined for Europe and the
United States.
Opium production is once again flourishing in Afghanistan following the
defeat of the Taliban by the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance forces. In July
2000 the Taliban outlawed the cultivation of poppy plants, from which opium
is derived. The ban caused a 96 percent drop in opium production, from a
peak of more than 1 million pounds in 1999 to 40,600 pounds in 2001,
according to the U.N. Drug Control Program.
But the change in who controls Afghanistan also means a shift in who
controls the country's drug trade. The Northern Alliance is stepping up drug
production in areas it holds, and recent reports indicate that planting of
poppy seeds for next year's spring harvest has already begun. Trafficking
patterns will also be altered, with more opium likely to transit through
Central Asian states to Russia. This will boost the quantity of opium-based
drugs, such as heroin and morphine, destined for Europe and the United States.
The greater availability will lower prices for such narcotics, increasing
usage in the West and quickly leading to more violence and crime. A surge in
production will also prompt traffickers to seek more markets. Because the
European market is well-established and easily saturated, drug traffickers
and criminal syndicates such as the Russia mafia will try to expand their
position in less-exploited markets such as the United States.
Afghanistan is one of the world's single-largest producers of opium and
accounted for nearly 40 percent of global production in the late 1990s,
according to the CIA. Production under the Taliban occurred largely in
southern and central Afghanistan. Most of the opium was produced in the
Helmand, Kandahar, Oruzgan, Nangarhar and Badakhshan provinces, which are
all now in the hands of anti-Taliban or Northern Alliance forces.
Routes established through cooperation between the Taliban and traffickers
in Pakistan and Iran resulted in the transiting of much of the country's
opium through Iran, the Persian Gulf states, Turkey and the Balkans before
reaching European markets. Over the past decade, another route from
Afghanistan – aimed at tapping the American market – was established via
East African countries such as Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda before reaching
the United States.
But with local warlords and chieftains associated with the Northern Alliance
now in control of the major drug-producing regions, use of the
Taliban-favored southern routes through Pakistan will take a hit while
northern routes will see more drug trafficking.
Northern Alliance warlords will want to reward their allies to the north by
sending business their way, and this will heighten traffic through Central
Asia directly to Russia. According to Russian intelligence officers quoted
by the BBC, traffickers in Tajikistan receive narcotics from areas under the
control of the Northern Alliance. They then pass the drugs to Russian border
guards, who in turn transfer them by air to Russia.
Organized criminal gangs in Tajikistan and other Central Asian states are
thought to work closely with the Russian mafia. The enrichment of the mafia
through a rise in Afghanistan's heroin trade will create a host of law
enforcement problems for Moscow.
A higher supply of opium products and lower purchase prices will create more
addicts, rival gangs may turn to violence to resolve competition, and the
corruption among government officials will skyrocket. Such impacts will not
be felt only in Russia and the saturated European markets. The shift in
trafficking patterns for Afghan drugs will also threaten law and order in
the United States.
Although heroin is available in America, it is not widely used, according to
a report by the U.S. Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center.
The quality and the quantity of heroin now coming into the United States
both are low, making it expensive and more dangerous than other drugs such
as cocaine. But the new trafficking patterns may change that.
The Russian mafia is known to have well-established connections with
organized crime throughout the world, including drug traffickers in the
Balkans and South America. These connections have already helped bring
Colombian cocaine to Russia in exchange for weapons and cash. Russian mafia
connections with Colombian and Mexican drug cartels may now help bring
Afghan heroin to the United States.
There is ample evidence to suggest Russian organized crime has established
working relationships with Colombian traffickers. The discovery in Bogota
last year of a submarine carrying Russian documents and instruction manuals
and capable of transporting huge amounts of cocaine undetected suggests the
Russian mafia was involved in its construction.
The United States is an attractive alternative market for heroin and
morphine. It is wealthy and has more current and potential users who can
fund their habits. And the opium-derived products now available on the U.S.
market are for the most part lower-quality Mexican brown heroin rather than
the purer white Afghan heroin.
Transporting opium products from southwest Asia to the United States remains
a logistical challenge. However, the attractiveness of the U.S. market will
encourage some entrepreneurial traffickers to take the added risks.
U.S. policy makers and drug-enforcement groups are already discussing ways
to prevent a resurgence of Afghanistan's drug trade. U.S. counter-narcotics
officials are hoping to make anti-drug measures – such as the planting of
alternative crops – a precondition for any future Afghan government to
receive humanitarian aid, according to
The Associated Press Worldstream Nov. 25.
The United Nations is also gearing up to combat the problem. A delegation of
U.N. anti-narcotics experts was recently sent to Afghanistan to monitor
drug-trafficking patterns along the country's northern border with
Tajikistan, Itar-Tass reported Nov. 23.
The participation of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan's opium production
creates a public relations nightmare for the United States, which backed the
opposition forces in order to oust the Taliban. Washington will find it
problematic to support leaders known to rely on the drug trade to fund
military campaigns.
A larger issue, however, is the impact that a resurgence in the cultivation
and trafficking of Afghan heroin will have on the West's never-ending quest
to combat the drug trade. The United States scored an important victory in
its war against Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network with the collapse of the
Taliban. By bringing an end to the harsh regime, Washington deprived
al-Qaida of sanctuary.
But it also removed the only prohibitions against opium cultivation in
Afghanistan that reduced drug production. Washington may be winning the war
on terrorism, but in doing so, it may have opened a new front in the war on
drugs.
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