To Eradicate or Not to Eradicate? That is the Question.

There has been increased focus recently on the subject of the prevalence of opium production in Afghanistan and the commitment and effectiveness (or lack thereof) of efforts to combat it by both the Afghan government and coalition forces operating in that country.  Newsweek magazine recently published a story on the degree to which Afghanistan’s drug trade is threatening the stability of a nation America went to war to stabilize.  The scope of the problem is undeniable and daunting.  The article states:

Narcotics trafficking isn’t merely big, it’s more than half the economy — amounting to $2.7 billion annually, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) — that is, 52% of the countries entire GDP.

So what are the practical implications for such a reliance on opium production and the drug trade in general?  Aside from the obvious public health consequences (it appears a surprisingly large number of Afghanis are in fact using opium and heroin, not just growing it), a Western diplomat in Kabul points out the larger ramifications to Afghan society:

Afghanistan’s main problems are all linked to drug trafficking: rampant corruption, repressive militia groups, human-rights abuses and bad governance.

An UNODC official concurs:  “It’s the cornerstone of everything you want to do here.  It’s linked to security, to building the justice and law-enforcement systems and to economic and political development.”

So, eradication should be our highest priority, right?  Well, it turns out there is a competing viewpoint that questions whether, especially in the absence of realistic economic alternatives, counternarcotics should be such an immediate dominant feature of our strategy in Afghanistan. 

The Autumn 2005 issue of The Washington Quarterly, published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, contains an article that takes a more nuanced if not skeptical approach to the issue and argues that there are some serious problems that ensue from an aggressive eradication program:

Yet, paradoxically, counternarcotics efforts frequently complicate counterterrorism and counterinsurgency objectives and can also undermine democratization in fragile situations.  Counternarcotics measure frequently threaten the security environment by undermining efforts at political stablization and democratic consolidation without addressing the underlying economic causes.  They compromise intelligence gathering, alienate rural populations, and allow local renegade elites successfully to agitate against the central government.

Finally, in the category of thinking “outside the box,” a recent article in the Business Recorder, a financial daily published in Pakistan, mentioned a study that has been released urging the West to consider licensing opium production in Afghanistan for legitimate medicinal use by drug manufacturers and governments both in the West and in the developing world.  That feasibility study on opium licensing in Afghanistan was produced by the Senlis Council in conjunction with Kabul University’s Department of Pharmacology, the Universities of Calgary and Toronto in Canada, University of Ghent (Belgium), University of Lisbon (Portugal), and the British Institute of International and Comparative Law.

Published Date: January 06, 2006