As the Poppy Grows

By:Dr. G. Rauf Roashan

It grows from tiny seeds dispersed over ploughed and well-catered plots of land. As it grows, it requires constant attention -timely watering and weeding. The farmers do not mind the toil. The cash expected from its sale serves as a strong incentive. Then it rises to around one meter in height. Its flowers are attractive and give the field a garden look. As the petals fall off, the plump ovaries almost bursting with cream inside become naked. The farmers then start the tedious job of scratching the skin of the green ovaries by cutting longitudinal lines on it with blades. As the whitish cream begins to ooze out it is left to oxidize. The white cream slowly congeals and becomes brown. This is the time to scrape it off the ovaries of the poppy plant. The farmers harvest, raw opium, is ready to be cashed out. A variety of dealers buy the product for purposes of reselling, smuggling out, or refining and producing of heroine, mostly abroad, although heroine production inside Afghanistan was also attempted at in the recent years.

During the decade of the Soviet occupation, poppy cultivation served as a sign of revolt against the communist regime. It also brought much needed cash for the continuation of the fight for freedom. Its trafficking through extremely porous borders too, became easier. Small labs in neighboring countries specifically cropped up for the further processing of the raw opium. Venues for its international smuggling beyond the region and even to other continents too were opened as international drug dealers got involved in this multi-million dollar business that made many millionaires around the world. It was also stipulated that the KGB of the Soviet era was involved in its trafficking and paid smugglers in arms that were then used by the leftist moves around the world.

Lack of central authority and the chaos of war made it difficult to fight the scourge of opium in Afghanistan especially after the expulsion of the Soviet forces of occupation. In Afghanistan, where opium addiction was a rarity and could only be found in certain small pockets in Faizabad area of Badakhshan province in the north, people started using it almost everywhere during the war. The long war and devastation and its tragic effects further fueled the fire of this addiction. However, drug use in Afghanistan is still not as big a problem as it is in neighboring Iran. But its production and trafficking is a huge local, regional and international problem.

The opium originating in Asia including Burma and Afghanistan alerted Western governments who felt the punch of drug abuse in their inner cities. The world had to do something about it. The United Nations Narcotics Control Office in Geneva and the western countries also spend some money, but lots of rhetoric suggesting the need for drug control. Many studies and suggestions by people who were aware of the economic importance of opium in the lives of the poor peasants in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for finding of alternative crops or economic incentives for the farmers so that they would give up opium cultivation. This was never followed up seriously. On the other hand conditions became favorable for its production and trafficking as first the Mujahidin and later the Taleban got addicted to the cash earned from its production and sale. Even today warlords and drug-lords are propagating a new drug culture. So while the political structure of the country is being overhauled and people are engaged in dialogues only for reconstruction and while no measurable progress has been achieved in economic sectors of the country, poppy is grown by the peasants who pay much of the income from it to the local warlords who charge them taxes and much more is given to the drug-lords who buy the product at very cheap prices from them.

As many political events took place in the country and as the interim government was replaced by a transitional one and as new political steps are taken in the life of the country in the form of preparation of a draft constitution and making it ready for the study of a Constitutional Loya Jirga; and as coalition forces engage remnants of Taleban and Al-Qaeda, and while members of the International Assistance Forces of the United Nations and members of the United States forces in Afghanistan are being targeted by militants-mostly Taleban or their allies, the poppy grows steadily in the Afghan fields. This time, the beneficiaries are many. The warlords, the drug-lords, the Taleban and their supporters and the drug traffickers all benefit from poppy cultivation.

As the officials of the transitional government were busy politicking, and as their international allies, the United States and the United Nations were busy planning for maintaining of an elusive peace and security in the country, and as a variety of commissions and committees were planning for the future of the country in the form of preparation of national documents or daydreaming about improving the country's economy, the poppy plant grew and produced a bumper crop. The production of opium in Afghanistan doubled compared to last year and so did the area set aside by farmers for its cultivation.

Under these conditions, the West is still reluctant and slow to encourage the administration of a US friendly government in Afghanistan to take up issues of reconstruction and economic development more seriously so that the need by the farmers for the cash they earn from opium cultivation is gradually met by other sound economic measures. They still do not have a clear plan for the elimination of a poppy based rural economy especially in the east and south of the country and replacing it with provision of alternatives for the farmers to improve their economic status. They have failed to recognize the drug as a true evil that has a great role not only in the propagation of addiction of the local populations, but also of financing of a hidden war waged by the extremists and Taleban and their allies in Afghanistan. 11/29/03