Obama’s AfPak Envoy Says Opium Eradication Policy ‘Least Effective Program Ever’
In what is probably the most significant shift in US strategy in Afghanistan since the invasion, US Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke told reporters at the G8 summit that NATO forces would no longer focus on poppy eradication. Instead, the coalition is going to teach farmers about alternative crops (I’ll have a post about that later today) and focus on interdiction at the Afghan border (which I’ve written about for The Monitor, here.)
“Spraying the crops just penalizes the farmer and they grow crops somewhere else,” said Holbrooke. “The hundreds of millions of dollars we spend on crop eradication has not had any damage on the Taliban. On the contrary, it has helped them recruit. This is the least effective program ever.” He also called the US efforts so far “a waste of money.”
Here’s a good roundup of web responses to the announcement
Since the war began in 2001, eliminating poppy crops through spraying and burning has been the centerpiece program for counter-narcotics in Afghanistan.
According to the Afghan government and UN drug office opium production has slowed in the last year, dropping by nineteen-percent. But this progress may have more to do with market forces than eradication efforts.
In a Foreign Policy article from last fall (first item,) David Mansfield, an expert on Afghanistan’s poppy production, explained the poppy drop thusly:
According to nearly 500 interviews Mansfield recently conducted with Afghan farmers, poppy yields this year have been much lower than expected, which suggests that farmers are planting more wheat in response to market pressures. “[P]eople said they were going to grow more poppy than they subsequently did,” Mansfield explains. He says that even farmers in the poppy capital of Helmand province may have torn up and replanted their fields with wheat as the price began to jump. According to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Counter Narcotics, 20 provinces are poppy free this year, seven more than in 2007, largely because farmers were switching to legal crops.
The US sees an opportunity for market forces to work where armed forces have failed.
Today, the Taliban makes about $300 million from opium production, and Afghanistan still supplies 90 percent of the world’s heroin. Until now, the US approach to this problem has been to destroy the crops while being shot at, consequently making enemies of farmers who need the poppies to feed their families. (The UK will still be using this method and it appears that the Afghan government is not totally on board with the new US initiative. I may have a post on this later, after I make some phone calls.)
To farmers, opium is an attractive crop because the Taliban makes it easy for them.
Often, the Taliban will give money to a farmer up front, before he’s even planted seed number one. The Taliban will guarantee a price and come pick up the crops once they have been harvested.
This is much easier than planting seeds, harvesting a crop and carting the perishable product over miles of impossible roads on whatever transport is available (think donkeys,) to a market where the price is anything but guaranteed.
In southern Afghanistan—where most of the world’s heroin begins life—the opium harvest begins in late spring. Around that time next year, we’ll know if this new policy bears fruit of change, or just more junk for the world’s junkies.
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Your comments about “market forces” having, potentially, a greater impact than crop eradication are interesting. Economic collapse could really hurt the market for illegal drugs! Another upside to the collapse of capitalism.
Seriously, though, what would it take (short of mass starvation) to make wheat worth more than opium?
Maybe they could try winning the war on terrorism before the war on drugs.
Why don’t we spend a few years out-pricing the Taliban, buy all poppies at triple the going rate, we would then control the market, we could pick it up, use whatever in the pharma market, burn the rest. The Taliban lose funding, we save money on the drug war and the people get some folding money. When the situation calms down, the farmers learn better, more modern methods of regular farming, raising cattle and we phase out the poppies.
Am I being naive here?
The Taliban would be pissed off but so would the farmers if they can’t get the best price. I mean we want to win hearts and minds and we are not going to do that by starving the people or trying to change what they have been doing for centuries overnight.
If this country is good at anything it is monopolizing a market.
Pip,
Given the laws we have now, I’m not sure that wheat will ever be worth more than opium. Probably the best way to solve Afghanistan’s drug problem–and Columbia’s as well–would be for western nations that consume all of these drugs to de-criminalize them. A regulated market would mean regulated production.
Or, speaking in a roundabout way to Libtree’s point, the WFP or somebody could buy Afghan wheat at an extremely inflated price and sell it for a loss, but that’s not sustainable. I also like the idea of drug companies buying up the opium and cornering the market. Others have suggested this, but I think that course goes directly against the Afghan government’s objective, which is to eradicate all poppy production. For that reason the gov’t here is not at all thrilled about the US change in policy.
If I remember correctly the only government entity that did curtail opium production was the Taliban.
Both Pakistan and Afghanistan have a stated policy against opium production yet the fields continue to flourish. Didn”t the government of Pakistan in the 89’s and 90’s continually state it was working with the British government and burned some a few fields but to really crack down it risked rebellion from the farmers and funding from the drug lords. Isn’t Karzai’s motivation for eradication of poppies part of a war strategy?
I agree that we need to cut demand and we seem to be heading in that direction ever so slowly, Webb’s prison bill would help, however to do this we need to spend drug enforcement money on clinics. In Los Angeles, if you are an ordinary junkie, finding a bed to detox can take months. All seems a lot cheaper to just buy the stuff.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] has shifted. Last weekend US AfPak envoy Richard Holbrooke announced that US forces would cease poppy eradication efforts. The new plan is a two-part initiative: Encourage farmers to grow sustainable, edible crops, while [...]
[...] died–though not here–and war correspondents shrugged. Next came the big announcement that US forces would no longer be engaging in poppy eradication, instead focusing on opium [...]