Karl Marx said
"Religion is the opium of the masses". Karl Marx obviously
never visited Afghanistan. Here, opium is the opium of the
masses. We may be fighting the Taliban, supporting the Government of
the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and securing the population but
inextricably linked with all three is the drugs trade. Opium poppy cultivation
and drug trafficking are insidiously intertwined at all levels of the political
and economic situation of Afghanistan. When the Soviets left in 1989 opium poppy cultivation
increased rapidly as mujahideen commanders, no longer funded by the US, taxed poppy cultivation
and used the drug trade as a source of financing their military groups and
struggle for power. Overtly, their opponents, the Taliban condemned narcotics
cultivation as haraam - anti-Islamic, but a desperate requirement for ready
cash to finance their fight led to toleration and ultimately taxation of drug
cultivation. To give you some sort of scale, in 1980 just 2000 tons
of opium supplied the entire worlds legal and illegal drug use. Bizarrely, to
give them credit, once in power, the Taliban banned opium poppy cultivation
and under the ban, opium poppy cultivation was reduced by 94% to 185
metric tons. Yay! Since the downfall of the Taliban in
2001, cultivation and trafficking of opium has increased significantly. In
2002, Afghanistan produced over 5000 tons of raw opium. Boo! Afghanistan
is now, once again, the world's largest producer of opium. 90% of
the heroin consumed in Europe comes from opium produced in Afghanistan and 93%
of all the opiates on the world market originate in Afghanistan. The
price for one kilogram of opium is about $100 for the farmer, $800 for
purchasers in Afghanistan, and $16,000 on the streets of Europe before
conversion into heroin. Despite the price inequalities, for farmers it's worth
ten times what they could earn by growing any other crop. They can
earn $2000 from a poppy harvest, that's in a country where GDP is
less than $3 a day per person. It's big business. It makes up about
60% of Afghanistans GDP.
The production of
opium has not changed since ancient times. When the poppies are
grown for opium production, just before they ripen, about 90 days after
planting, the petals fall off revealing a pod about the size of an egg. The
pods are cut by with sharp blade and the poppy exudes a white, milky,
latex-like substance that leads to its name - poppy tears. The
tears dry to a sticky brown resin which is collected the following morning and
then the poppy can be cut again. There is a ten to twelve
day window for the harvest but expert harvesters can repeat this process many
times over on the same poppy. One acre can produce three to five kilograms
of raw opium which can then be refined into morphine base, which is used to
produce other drugs such as heroin. This can then be pressed into
bricks and sun-dried before further onward travel. Much like its effects on
individuals, the effects of this trade on the country is devastating. On
a local level it divides villages. Religious mullahs condemn it as
evil and tribal elders are usurped by younger and richer men, upsetting the
traditional order which is so important in this country. The Taliban
profit by taxing the farmers and by processing and selling the product,
financing the insurgency. On a national level it manifests itself in
internal corruption, political instability and reduced security. Externally
it leads to international condemnation.
There are poppy eradication
programmes, and the British have the lead on this, with our troops assisting
the Afghans. Programmes such as this are understandably unpopular
amongst low level subsistence farmers and often alienate us from the grass
roots level we are trying to win over, pushing them towards the Taliban and
violent resistance. Until a viable economic alternative can be
found, until we have enough troops to cover this vast country or until we can
interdict enough of the end product, the outlook remains bleak. It
seems a bitter irony that the flower which is directly responsible for the
deaths of so many British soldiers, is the same flower that we wear to remember
them.
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