DRUGS – Opium Cultivation: Business is Business

The intensification of heroin trafficking from Afghanistan affects the politics and economy of the entire region and has created a new narco-elite that enriches itself while the population’s poverty grows.

Economically, Afghanistan is like a black hole emitting waves of insecurity and chaos in a region already beset by multiple crises. The country’s infrastructure is in ruins. Essential public services found in any underdeveloped country do not exist here.

There is no running water, electricity, phone networks, or passable roads.

Thus, it is difficult to quantify the exact number of addicts. In 2005, there were about 200,000 opium addicts. By 2009, this number had risen to one million (a figure that, according to the UN, included about 3% of Afghan women), and by 2015, the figure ranged between 1.9 and 2.4 million. “Out of 40 million inhabitants, 3.5 million abuse drugs,” stated Mohammad Daoud Jaihon, the director of Jandalak Hospital in eastern Kabul, specialized in rehabilitating addicts, in April 2022.

According to estimates by the Afghan Ministry of Public Health, by the end of 2022, the number of female addicts was close to one million, and that of boys and girls over 100,000. The main reasons women fall into addiction are economic conditions and lack of employment. The precariousness makes them unable to fight for their lives or provide for their families, and the easiest way is to use substances. In many cases, it is the husbands who introduce them to drugs. Mothers who have used drugs during pregnancy often give drugs to their children to calm them when they cry. Thus, these children become addicted from a young age.

The data on males is equally alarming: mainly men and boys use Tramadol and Captagon, the jihadists’ drug, an amphetamine that eliminates fatigue and fear.

These are the facts. But what is the Taliban’s policy on drugs? One should not be misled by recent news from Afghanistan about a drastic reduction in opium cultivation: the Taliban, from their inception, have financed themselves through “taxes” on opium cultivation and amphetamine production and continue to do so, skillfully using market laws.

A bit of history: In 1989, as soon as the Red Army withdrew, Mullah Akhundzada realized that the heroin trade needed to be controlled. He imposed opium cultivation in the Helmand Valley: anyone who opposed it by continuing to grow pomegranates or wheat with state subsidies would be castrated. The result was the production of 250 tons of heroin. Akhundzada, today considered the major Taliban leader, is one of the most important traffickers in the world.

In 1997, the UNDCP (United Nations Drugs Control Programme) concluded an agreement with the Taliban, who agreed to eliminate opium poppy cultivation provided the international community supplied the money to help farmers transition to alternative crops. They committed to supporting the introduction of new commercial crops, improving irrigation, building new factories, and covering the costs of the new policy.

But the agreement was never implemented by the Taliban, and in 1998, after the UN agencies left Afghanistan, it was simply shelved. Taxes on opium exports became the Taliban’s main revenue and the main support for their war economy. In 1995, UNDCP estimated that drug exports from Pakistan and Afghanistan brought in 50 billion rupees (1.35 billion dollars) a year; by 1998, the value of heroin exports had doubled, reaching 3 billion dollars.

In 2000-2001, to ingratiate themselves with the international community that branded Taliban-ruled Afghanistan as a hub of Islamic terrorism, the Taliban imposed a drastic reduction in opium production, causing heroin prices to soar; since production had spiked in previous years (see graph), the Taliban could still secure large profits by selling stocks at new market prices.

It is therefore highly likely that history is repeating itself today.

After taking Kabul, the Taliban announced a program to eradicate poppy cultivation and promote mass detoxification, but according to the 2022 Opium Cultivation in Afghanistan report published by the United Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC): “Opium cultivation in Afghanistan increased by 32% compared to the previous year, up to 233,000 hectares, making the 2022 harvest the third largest cultivated area since monitoring began. Cultivation continued to concentrate in the southwestern parts of the country, which accounted for 73% of the total area and saw the largest increases in harvest. In Helmand province, a fifth of arable land was dedicated to opium poppy.”

In April 2022, they announced a ban on cultivation (but not the destruction of the “mega” 2022 harvest, nor was its processing and trade prohibited): opium prices skyrocketed, and its sales yielded from 425 million dollars in 2021 to 1.4 billion dollars in 2022 (equivalent to 29% of the value of Afghanistan’s entire agricultural sector in 2021).

The reduction in cultivation is confirmed by the latest UNODC report (June 2023): “The 2023 opium harvest in Afghanistan could see a drastic drop following the national drug ban, as early reports suggest reductions in poppy cultivation.” But the same report warns about the real intention to eradicate drug trafficking: “Afghanistan is also a major producer of methamphetamines in the region, and the decline in opiate cultivation could lead to a shift towards synthetic drug production, benefiting various actors.”

Additionally, our sources in Afghanistan, besides highlighting how this “reduction,” primarily motivated by the search for international recognition, guarantees the Taliban the same high earnings from past years due to price increases, inform us that not all of the 2022 production has been placed on the market and substantial stocks will allow dollars to flow into Taliban coffers for a long time.