Pubdate: Sun, 16 Sep 2007
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2007 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact:  http://www.boston.com/globe/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Paul Fishstein
Note: Paul Fishstein is director of the Afghanistan Research and 
Evaluation Unit, a policy research institute based in Kabul.
Cited: http://www.senliscouncil.org/modules/Opium_licensing
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Afghanistan
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Senlis (Senlis Council)
Bookmark: http://drugnews.org/topics/poppy (Poppy)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Taliban
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion)

POPPY PARADOX IN AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN'S opium output has risen for another year, and with it 
the volume of the debate over solutions. On opposite extremes are the 
US government, which advocates a more aggressive, eradication-led 
approach, including chemical spraying, and the Senlis Council, which 
advocates the legalization of opium poppy cultivation to meet a 
claimed worldwide shortage of painkillers.

While these proposals may satisfy a hunger to hear simple solutions, 
both would exacerbate the problem.

Those advocating spraying claim that, largely due to corruption among 
government officials, all else has failed, and that a strong message 
must be sent to farmers. Yet, in an economy with an estimated 40 
percent unemployment, it is not clear what would replace the 
one-third of Afghanistan's economy which would be destroyed.

Those advocating legalization claim that Afghanistan's problems with 
opium arise from its illegality and that legalization of production 
would reduce corruption, crime, and violence. Yet, in attributing 
much if not all of the unrest in southern Afghanistan to western drug 
policies, the legalizers ignore the other major causes of unrest, 
including criminality, corruption (much of it nondrug-related), 
resistance to foreign forces, and the support of groups across the 
border in Pakistan.

The legalizers are correct: An aggressive eradication-led approach, 
especially one involving chemical spraying, will exacerbate 
insecurity, hand the Taliban a golden propaganda opportunity, 
undermine both the Kabul government and its international supporters, 
and hurt most badly the poorest farmers and laborers. In months past, 
a number of security incidents in the eastern province of Nangarhar 
were not caused by Taliban but farmers resisting eradication.

Research has continually reaffirmed that most Afghan farmers, 
especially poorer ones, are constrained by a variety of factors 
(i.e., credit, water, roads, corruption) and cannot simply shift to 
alternative crops in response to eradication. A "tough love" approach 
is therefore not likely to produce anything but deep hate for the 
government and the international community. As one farmer in a 
poppy-growing area of Badakhshan put it, "the government hasn't 
provided jobs, services, or infrastructure, but now they want our crops."

Even more worrying, the US government's new counter-narcotics 
strategy uses still un-quantified links between opium and the Taliban 
to argue for merging counternarcotics with counterinsurgency. 
Explicitly equating growing poppies with insurgent activity may play 
well with the public at home, but merging the war on drugs with the 
global war on terror will be read in Afghanistan's unstable areas as 
a war on farmers - hardly consistent with the professed goal of 
winning hearts and minds. And an aggressive campaign that achieved 
the national target of 25 percent eradication in Helmand Province 
(the area which most hangs in the political balance) would likely 
reflect the old adage that the operation was a success, but the patient died.

Yet, the sprayers are also correct: In a country where legal 
institutions are often incapable even of keeping accused drug 
suspects in jail and where drugs are said to travel in the convoys of 
high officials, legalization will blur the lines between legal and 
illegal opium, provide new opportunities for corruption, and bid up 
the price of illicit opium - providing even stronger incentives for 
production. The legalizers have still not been able to answer the 
most basic question: If the opium poppy that is currently grown on 3 
percent of Afghanistan's agricultural land is made legal, why 
wouldn't farmers expand production onto other areas?

The Afghan government has made clear its objections to both 
legalization and chemical spraying. Still, spraying has powerful 
advocates, and the new US strategy can easily be read as laying the 
groundwork for spraying, if not this year, then next. Certainly the 
new US ambassador, who oversaw "Plan Colombia" and its key component 
of aerial spraying, has reinforced the belief that spraying is 
coming. Such talk may well drive farmers to look for "protection" 
from antigovernment elements. On the other hand, the legalizers seem 
to have gained traction in some western capitals for what sounds at a 
distance like a simple solution to a complex problem.

Afghanistan needs a greater active commitment to all of the elements 
of its National Drug Control Strategy, which is a combination of 
interdiction, public information, prosecution of known drug dealers, 
and development of the legal economy. There is evidence that, with 
the right transport infrastructure, access to markets, and economic 
incentives, a combination of legal crops and off-farm employment 
opportunities can sustainably draw farmers away from the illicit economy.

In parts of Nangarhar, for example, the combination of high value 
vegetable crops and job opportunities has competed with opium poppy. 
Likewise, in Badakhshan and other areas of the north, the recovery of 
animal herds decimated by years of drought has shifted the economics 
of production toward wheat and other fodder-producing crops. In such 
areas, where farmers have choices, targeted eradication would make sense.

The more politically challenging aspects of the strategy, such as 
apprehending the "big fish" rather than petty traders and the 
politically unconnected, are also critical, in part to help improve 
the government's suspect credibility. Eradicating the crops of poor 
farmers while allowing the big fish to swim freely is not politically 
tenable, nor does it seem equitable, particularly to a rural 
population that feels that it bears the brunt of western governments' 
counternarcotics policies.

Relatedly, support for overall good governance - especially 
replacement of known corrupt officials with clean ones - is likewise 
critical. In some areas, "taxes" charged to farmers along the road 
are seen as obstacles to cultivation of legal crops. There is a huge 
appetite among Afghans for serious steps to stem this sort of corruption.

There are no simple solutions to Afghanistan's narcotics problem. 
Spraying may serve the Taliban by draining support from the 
government and its international supporters, while legalized 
cultivation may please drug traffickers and corrupt officials by 
muddying the distinction between legal and illegal, but both are 
likely to deepen Afghanistan's opium problem. There is room for hope, 
but not with these types of "solutions."
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake