Feb
28
Opium Economy: How crucial it is towards Afghanistan
February 28, 2008 | | 1 Comment
By Violet Wang
Opium has unique meanings in Afghanistan, where it stands for the core of a large drug driven economy and the origin of most of the world supply, which in turn becomes a cash machine for insurgents in the country.
Afghanistan’s narco-economy has grown for more than seven years since the overthrow of the Taliban regime, and poppy production in the country was worth $1bn to farmers. The value to the drug refiners and traffickers is far greater, based on International Monetary Fund estimate. The country has also moved into the more lucrative business of refining raw opium into heroin inside its own borders.
According to the 2007 Afghan opium survey by United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, poppy growth in the country increased by 17 per cent to 193,000 hectares and the growth in heroin production leapt a third to 8,200 tonnes. The report shows that Afghanistan now accounts for 93 per cent of world opium production and is the biggest narcotics producer since 19th-century China.
The biggest growth area is in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold. In 2006, the southern province accounted for 46% of Afghanistan’s opium production. Kandahar, a province to the east of Helmand, produced eight percent. The majority of Afghanistan’s opium economy is built on production in two southern provinces.
Using NATO’s divisions of Afghanistan, Regional Command South, which includes Helmand and Kandahar provinces, accounts for more than 60% of the country’s opium production.
Helmand produces about half of the national output of heroin. Farmers earned around USD 1bn from the total income from the heroin trade, estimated at USD 4bn, while district officials took a percentage through a levy on the crops. The rest was shared among insurgents, warlords and drugs traffickers, the UNODC Afghan opium report said.
Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes Policy, had described a “divided” Afghanistan, with opium production dropping in the relatively stable and US friendly north, and increasing in the south, the center of an insurgency. Anti-US Taliban militants control large areas in the south and have encouraged farmers to grow opium.
According to United Nations officials interviewed Afghan law enforcement and coalition agencies in 2007, a tie between the opiate trade and the Taliban continues, and some Taliban units organize drug production and insurgent activities at the same time.
Afghanistan opium production is believed to be funding the Taliban and other militants opposed to President Hamid Karzai’s rule. A state department report earlier this year described a relationship in which traffickers supply weapons and money to the Taliban in exchange for the protection of drug trade routes and poppy fields.
However, without an effective counter-narcotics effort, the influence of the narcotics industry would likely set the stage for Afghanistan’s reemergence as a safe haven for international terrorist operations.
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What do the local Afghan people think about this? Is it a big problem for them?