The White House Against Opium

Americans recognize the ineffectiveness of the fight against narcotics in Afghanistan. Due to the complete failure to eliminate Afghan opium crops with the use of chemical spraying, America is terminating the program.

The ineffectiveness of the current “biological struggle” against Afghanistan’s drug crops was recognized by the U.S. administration’s Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke. He has announced that “hundreds and hundreds of million dollars” spent by the U.S. on the destruction of opium crops in Afghanistan has “not made any damage on the ‘Taliban’ movement.” Holbrooke made one important note: he disclosed that they are reviewing the most effective programs in American history to identify the means needed to perform such assignments.

Many experts admit that present day Afghanistan is on the threshold of becoming a drug-ruled government. Right now, the country holds about 93 percent of the world’s plantations growing illicit opium poppies, the raw material needed for heroin manufacturing. The crops are located in 16 of 34 provinces in the country, mostly in the southern part where the Taliban insurgents are active.

The opium poppies are mainly grown in the Helmand province in the southern part of Afghanistan. Western experts cite shocking data that this province has surpassed Colombia in the manufacture of opium. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, there are more than 400 laboratories in the Afghan territory that manufacture drugs, where locals and Westerners are employed.

Russian and Western experts have repeatedly warned Washington that in the struggle against Afghani narcotics, there has to be a complex approach consisting of incentives to local farmers and the prosecution of drug lords. Interestingly, some years ago the British tried to achieve an essential reduction of narcotic substances with the help of monetary compensation to local farmers. They paid about $1250 per hectare of destroyed poppy crops. However, considering the constant growth of drug plantations and the farmers’ fear of the Taliban, this method was unsuccessful.

According to the United Nations’ report, in 2008, 78 representatives in the country that tried to destroy opium poppy crops were killed. The casualties are six times more than those of 2007. Note that NATO is not allowed to destroy opium crops in Afghanistan, and only in October of 2008 did NATO countries allow their troops to attack drug lords and to destroy laboratories used to manufacture drugs.

Currently, the White House is planning to shift its financial resources to other methods to fight the illegal manufacture of drugs in Afghanistan. Americans have decided to focus their attention on increasing border control to contain the flow of narcotics, detaining major drug lords and expanding financial aid to farmers to encourage cultivation of other agricultural crops instead of opium.

From the report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime:

– There are somewhere between 11 to 21 million people worldwide who inject drugs. China, the U.S., Russia and Brazil hold 45 percent of all drug users.

– The world markets for cocaine, opiates and cannabis appear to be stable or declining, but there are several indications that the manufacture and consumption of synthetic drugs is growing in developing countries.

– Located in southeast Asia, especially along the basin of the Mekong River, laboratories produce large quantities of amphetamine pills, crystal methamphetamine and other substances, such as ketamine drugs. The main suppliers of ecstasy are several European Union countries, and Canada has turned into a grand center of illicit trade of methamphetamine and ecstasy.

Citation: Victor Ivanov, the head of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service:

– From the beginning of the operation ‘Indestructible Freedom’ and the entry of the U.S. and NATO contingents into Afghanistan in 2001, the manufacture of opiates has multiplied 44 times. Hundreds of heroin laboratories and mini-factories operating in Afghanistan are producing a considerable stockpile. This stored heroin reserve makes up to two to three thousand tons.