How Do You Stop the Poppies?

I suppose that’s the $200 billion question, isn’t it. How does one stop the illegal drug trade? If the U.S., Mexico, and Colombia are an indication, a straight eradication campaign will only result in higher prices and thus more incentive to produce. If India and Turkey are any indication, then for at least some types of narcotics (opium), partial legitimization can have a meaningful impact on the organized criminal element.

Unless you are the International Crisis Group. Writing in today’s Christian Science Monitor, two ICG scholars make the case that, in fact, eradication is the best way of dealing with an entrenched drug cartel. Here’s how the frame the issue:

For example, large-scale forced eradication (for example, by aerial spraying of crops, as advocated by some US policymakers), will not work…

Another superficially attractive solution that has been getting increasing attention is that of legalizing, or “licensing,” the production of opium for medicinal purposes.

But this option would solve a problem that does not exist and fail to address several that do.

Good so far. They claim the global supply for opium is already overabundant. Of course, relying on the International Narcotics Control Board, whose surveys have a funny habit of ignoring developing countries when assessing opiate-based painkiller needs, is tricky.

More to the point, however, is their recommended course of action.

The sole reason that opium fetches high prices is that it is illegal. Licensed opiates fetch a fraction of the price. Farmers would have no incentive to produce opium legally as long as there is a black market offering much higher profits for the illegal output. And the logistical challenges are immense.

Notice the circular logic. If opium is expensive because only it is illegal, then making opium legal would make it cheap—thus removing the economic incentive to grow more. This is analogous to the calls for drug legalization in the U.S., where activists point to the Prohibition when making their case for legalization. Criminalization doesn’t work—crime and ruinously high prices attach themselves to these substances because they are so highly restricted, and not necessarily from any sort of intrinsic “vice value” in the product itself—cigarettes, for example, another highly addictive substance requiring large scale cultivation, are cheap. When alcohol was made legal again, the entire criminal underworld supporting the liquor trade was cut out (though the problem of organized crime persisted, this was a legacy of the social and financial networks they built up under Prohibition, and helped along by the prohibition of other drugs).

In other words, the best way to force the problems of the drug trade out of Afghanistan is to legalize drugs. Cut out the support structure through which opium provides money, power and influence and you cut out the drug lords. That such a solution will never fly in the U.S. is beside the point; if we are looking for solutions that have a realistic chance of ending the violence and corruption associated with the drug trade, we need to look at successful models—America after the 21st Amendment, not Colombia after the School of the Americas.

Back to the article itself: to pretend, as the authors do, that the logistical challenges for a licensing program are immense while minimizing the challenges to magically finding the “top 25 or 30″ drug lords, seizing their assets, destroying the labs and warehouses (a curious inclusion, since most opium is not processed in Afghanistan), and somehow replacing all that lost opium income with “comprehensive rural development,” is more than a bit daft. Both are enormous challenges that will require incredible amounts of time and resources to see through. Frankly, I think legalizing heroin is far more likely to occur than successfully pressuring Pakistan to “arrest its traffickers and corrupt border security officials,” to say nothing of killing the entire Afghan government’s golden goose.

The authors are right, however, that a major effort should be expended in non-producing areas to raise incomes and develop infrastructure so there is no incentive to start growing Dorothy’s menace. Development, ultimately, will be the “solution” to the opium problem. Growing poppies is a symptom of dire poverty and terrible supply chains, not some nefarious plot on the part of the Taliban to turn the people they wish to conquer into lifeless opium zombies like the British did to the Chinese. The Taliban happen to support opium cultivation in Afghanistan because it nets them money to fight, not because they like it. (I am also grateful the authors avoided mentioning the 1997 Taliban ban, which was unenforceable until the culmination of a horrendous series of drought years forced cultivation to a standstill—leading many to assume the Taliban had something to do with the drop in opium exports in 2000. UPDATE: Some have quibbled with the 1997 year for the first fatwa on opium production—my source was this report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service, dated October 5, 2001. The Taliban repeated their fatwa on opium in 2000, and, having secured and consolidated control over much more of the country, were simply in a better position to do more about it. I have yet to see any evidence that their efforts, however, would have been effective had they not also occurred at the height of a severe drought—and such points ignore the severe abuses required to frighten villagers into not producing.)

But what of short term solutions? Unfortunately, here there aren’t any good answers or clear paths. The INCB is correct that the current market for medical opiates is oversupplied, even if it ignores the likely future markets for it. Similarly, the authors and I are in agreement that airborne spraying (and, by extension, the PRT-based bulldozing) is counterproductive. I am also realistic about the chances of a drug legalization measure—however limited and targeted—making it through the current U.S. administration. But the authors’ proposed course of action, which tightly limits Colombia’s three decade war with FARC and the cocaine lords, cannot be a viable solution, either.

I don’t think there are short term solutions. Recognizing the role a destabilized environment plays on development efforts is one huge first step to take—one the Afghan government itself has been quite vocal about, but one NATO (in particular its European members, but also a Bush administration so tightly focused on Iraq it can’t do anything else) has yet to really respond to. But also realizing that in the non-violent areas opium not only doesn’t cause violence but can be effectively countered with traditional development measures is important as well.

Unfortunately, neither viewpoint seems to wend its way up to those in charge, or the electorates behind them. Until the policy makers and brass are willing to look at the situation creatively, ignoring whatever biases or preconceptions they bring to the table, an innovative solution to the problem of opium will not emerge in Afghanistan—while traditional measures only make the problem worse, as they have done elsewhere.

This post was written by...

Joshua Foust – author of 1801 posts on Registan.net.

Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust

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