Chapter 5
The International Politics of Opium

Moving forward into the twenty-first century, the battle against the international opium trade presents a complex political, social, economic, and cultural dilemma. The world has become a global battleground pitting poppy-growing nations that financially profit from the drug against opium-consuming nations that lose financially and morally. Two leading American anthropologists, Sidney Mintz and Eric Wolf, have written extensively about opium's economic impact on global politics, emphasizing that opium is one commodity that has "shaped the politics, culture, and social structure of peoples around the globe…. Opium is a key commodity in the expanding commerce between Asia and the Atlantic nations, thereby becoming enmeshed in the politics, economies, and cultures of both regions."³²

As thousands of tons of opium move annually across international trade routes, leaders of all involved nations apportion blame for the scourge. Government and civic leaders in the consumer nations blame the growing nations for allowing poppies to be harvested, while the growing nations blame consumer nations for allowing drug use and addiction within their own population.

The conflict simmers among politicians, the lines of the battle are drawn, with national interests of one group at odds with the national interests of the other. Every suggestion for curtailing the international flow of opium is invariably favorable to one side or the other, but rarely both.

Growing Nations Versus Consuming Nations

The distinction between growing and consuming nations is principally economic. The monetary profile of growing nations is one of poverty in which people are dependent upon simple agricultural activities still driven by slow and often inefficient human and animal labor. According to Angelika Schuckler, a farm management economist for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO), "You have to tackle the root causes of why farmers grow poppies. We have identified a number of root causes, the main ones being poverty, indebtedness, unemployment, and lack of governance."³³

Consuming nations, on the other hand, are wealthy and enjoy highly diversified economies that are based on industry and make use of the latest technologies. To the citizens of consuming nations, the faraway poppy fields represent the source and cause of agony for tens of thousands of homeless, unemployed addicts who loiter on urban streets. Opium addicts face a major health threat and pose an unnecessary economic drain and a socially destructive crime problem. From the point of view of consumer nations, the solution to addiction is to stop the opium trade at its roots, in the nations where the plant grows.

The farmers of poppy-growing nations, however, view the situation very differently. Poppy fields represent a guaranteed income for a large segment of rural populations, and poppies are the most lucrative crop they can grow. Small peasant farmers, whether in Afghanistan, Laos, or Mexico, can easily earn between ten and twenty times more money per acre for poppies than for bananas, coffee, sugar, or wheat.

Opium has been a lifesaver for Ghulam Shah, a thirty-five-year-old Afghan farmer who could barely feed his family on the few hundred dollars a year he earned growing wheat. But in 2002, Shah produced enough opium to pay all his debts and take his teenage daughter to Pakistan for kidney surgery. He estimates his 2003 opium crop will be worth roughly nine thousand dollars, a fortune in a country where most people earn less than one dollar a day. Pleased to be growing poppies, Shah confided in an interview, "Now I can fill my family's stomachs, send my daughter to school, and sleep well."³⁴ Colonel Pairat Thongjatu, a spokesman for Thailand's army, makes the same observation: "Because a half-acre plot of opium poppies could generate income of up to $9,090 per crop, many poor farmers continue to cultivate poppies despite the legal risks."³⁵

At the core of the dilemma is the reality that the poppies that provide an escape from poverty for millions of peasant farmers contribute to the poverty and misery of millions of users. These users include those who abuse opium, morphine, and heroin, since all three drugs are derived from poppies. In an attempt to help both growers and users, user nations proposed a strategy to eliminate poppy fields while providing either financial compensation or a viable alternative crop that would prevent farmers from falling back into poverty. The first strategy suggested and paid for by user nations was an eradication program aimed at destroying the poppies in the fields.

Poppy Eradication

DEA officers working with British drug enforcement agents surmised that the easiest place to stop the production of opium might be in the fields, the only place along the international drug route where the contraband cannot be hidden in containers, moved clandestinely in the night, or compressed into a small, highly concentrated form difficult to detect. One DEA official stated the solution this way:

The closer to the source we can attack, the better our chances of halting drug flows altogether. Crop control is by far the most cost-effective means of cutting supply. When crops are destroyed, no drugs can enter the system. It is akin to removing a malignant tumor before it can metastasize [spread]. In a perfect world, with no drug crops to harvest, no drugs could enter the distribution chain. Nor would there be any need for costly enforcement and interdiction operations.³⁶

The U.S. and British governments approached several poppy-growing countries with the offer to pay for eradication. Although the logic seemed unassailable, the implementation was not. The

millions of Asian and South American farmers who derive their livelihood from poppies feared that the eradication program would throw them back into poverty. As an incentive, the United States offered each farmer a stipend of between six hundred dollars and eight hundred dollars for each acre destroyed, and Great Britain offered three times that amount. Yet farmers resisted the offers because they knew that a good acre of opium poppies would pay even more. Despite the farmers' protests, many governments agreed to the deal.

Two eradication techniques were tried. The first was to hire local law enforcement officials to travel to known poppy fields, pay the farmer the agreed-upon eradication stipend, and destroy the plants. Swinging long leather whips weighted on the tail end by a small lead ball, police moved through the fields breaking the stalks and laying down the crop.

In larger, more open areas, helicopters equipped with spraying gear were deployed. Loaded with several hundred gallons of herbicides, they swooped low over the fields to spray the toxins. Within minutes of contact, the entire plant shriveled and died. Helicopters were effective and popular with the governments paying the costs. This method of eradication was unpopular, however, with farmers living near the exfoliated fields, who were not compensated for the bordering edible crops the herbicide had destroyed. Unusual skin rashes, burning eyes, an increase in miscarriages, and an assortment of other medical problems among farmers were blamed on the drifting herbicide carried by the winds.

Complaints also came from nonfarmers. Some village mayors objected to what they perceived as harsh military tactics used by law enforcement officers and helicopter crews, who often swept through fields without notice. Even more complaints were lodged by villagers whose income came from cleaning the harvested opium sap, processing, and distributing it. They were not compensated.

What appeared to be a success for consumer nations was not. Although a considerable number of acres were destroyed, the volume of opium, morphine, and heroin sold on the streets barely decreased. The policy of poppy eradication was harshly criticized within growing nations as being a health hazard and an economic flop. To counter these complaints, a second program was proposed that would provide alternative crops to opium farmers.

Alternatives to Poppy Cultivation

The climate in which poppies thrive is suitable for many food crops. The U.S. government, in concert with several other governments, offered poppy farmers alternative crops such as wheat, coffee, bananas, citrus fruits, and a variety of vegetables. The incentive came in the form of better crop seeds, improved farming techniques, and irrigation systems, all at no cost to the farmers. In addition to agricultural assistance, the United States paid farmers in some areas a onetime subsidy for every acre of poppies replaced by food crops.

In Myanmar, a project named Project Hell-Flower was designed to encourage the exchange of opium seeds for a variety of seeds for edible crops. According to Myanmar government spokesman Colonel Hla Min, "We have been implementing ways and means to bring these farmers out of poppy cultivation in a more humanitarian way than resorting to sending in troops to destroy their sole livelihood."³⁷

In Pakistan opium farmers in rugged and largely inaccessible foothills will soon be shifting from illicit poppy cultivation to growing legal crops. An estimated thirty thousand tribal people are expected to give up poppy farming and take up the cultivation of alternative crops under a federal government project. Most alternative crops were food crops, flavoring for food such as vanilla, and crops like patchouli that are used in perfumes. J.P. Choudhury, a district magistrate in Pakistan, said, "The project has been given a final shape. The whole idea is to woo the opium farmers into taking up cultivation of high return crops like vanilla and patchouli instead of poppy."³⁸

In February 2004, the UNFAO appealed for cash from the United Nations to encourage farmers in Afghanistan to grow crops other than opium. The organization wants donors to provide $25.5 million to finance a number of agricultural development projects between 2004 and 2009 in the hope they will wean Afghanistan farmers from the lucrative production of poppies. UNFAO spokeswoman Angelika Schuckler commented, "Rural poverty and a shortage of revenue are the main reasons why farmers produce opium. What is needed is a long-term commitment, probably for more than 10 years to create opportunities for alternative sources of income."³⁹

Why Is Afghanistan the World's Leading Opium Producer?

Afghanistan is the source of the majority of the opium sold in the world, even though the United States and Great Britain have spent tens of millions of dollars trying to stamp out the country's war-torn but resurgent drug production business. The UN Drug Control Program estimates that between 115,000 and 165,000 acres of land in Afghanistan is dedicated to opium poppy cultivation. Many people involved in suppressing the opium trade have asked how one country could possibly be responsible for growing between 75 and 80 percent of the world's opium supply.

The two principal reasons are related to Afghanistan's geography. First is the remote nature of most of Afghanistan's countryside. Poppies cover fields and hillsides many miles from small villages served by nothing more than narrow dirt roads. These remote areas are rarely visited by government officials, and those who do occasionally arrive do so in cars and trucks unsuited for the desolate, rugged terrain. Lacking gas stations, road signs, and reliable maps, the villages are safe from the prying eyes of outsiders.

The second reason for Afghanistan's proliferation of opium is its location, immediately south of three new nations formed after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. Afghanistan's opium flows north uninterrupted on its way to Europe and the United States because these three nations—Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan—have new governments that are under pressure to improve their struggling economies and resolve long-standing internal tribal disputes. Because of their political and economic stresses, the governments of the three northern neighbors pay little attention to Afghanistan's opium trade.

Crop replacement, however, has had only limited success. Its most obvious shortcoming is that alternate crops do not pay as well as opium. In the years 2002 and 2003, the average price for cultivating an acre of food crops in Afghanistan, for example, was only $360, significantly below what opium could bring. In 2004, the president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, commented, "Alternate crops have left many farmers with no choice but to produce narcotics."⁴⁰

The farmers' motives for selling opium poppies occasionally extends beyond simply providing incomes for their families. Because farmers have become relatively wealthy from growing opium, some are willing to spend their opium profits to gain political and social justice from oppressive governments.

Narco-Revolutionaries

As a valued commodity worldwide, opium generates huge profits that can be used to finance a variety of ventures that have the potential to change the way populations live. Beginning in the 1980s, political, social, and economic forces within several poppy-growing nations converged, giving opium the power to topple governments.

Within Colombia, Myanmar, and regions of Afghanistan, Mexico, Pakistan, and Indonesia, bloody civil insurrections are now being fought to overthrow either national or local governments. In all cases, rebel groups claim their aim is to secure greater political and economic freedom for their impoverished rural followers.

Waging a guerrilla war is an expensive proposition for peasant rebels. In opium-producing nations the only source of ready money—enough to purchase automatic weapons, hand grenades, and land mines—is the local opium crop. To gain an equal footing against government forces, rebel forces regularly commandeer and sell some portion of the opium crop and then purchase weapons with the proceeds for their wars of independence.

Since the only big source of money is tied to opium, rebel leaders have tightened their control of the poppy harvests. In some areas, rebel leaders have taken control of the entire industry, from planting and harvesting to packaging and exportation. A portion of the profit is then distributed to the farmers and a portion is used to purchase arms. In regions where this has occurred, government forces have adopted the tactic of destroying poppy fields to limit purchases of weapons. Yet as government troops destroy peasant poppy fields, the major source of income for farmers, the peasants' animosity toward the government is strengthened.

In the regions where rebel activities are most intense, the relationship between the opium crop and the guerrilla warfare is blurred to the point where one cannot exist without the other. In such places, government leaders have pejoratively labeled the revolutionaries "narco-revolutionaries" or "narco-terrorists" because rebels depend on the opium harvests to wage war and because rebel leaders have pressured local farmers to increase rather than decrease poppy production.

Insurrectionists rely on the illicit harvest of opium to attain their political and social objectives. Legitimate governments also involve themselves with opium in crafting their domestic and

foreign policies. One such case involving a consumer nation and a grower nation is the current relationship between the United States and Afghanistan. Fields of opium poppies play a central role in the relationship between the two countries and their political objectives.

Opium as a Tourist Industry

A few regions in the Golden Crescent and the Golden Triangle have attempted to give up growing opium poppies in exchange for tourist dollars. Following the deaths of hundreds of villagers due to local drug wars, chieftains decided to attract tourist dollars to bolster local economies.

Deep within the infamous Golden Triangle along the Thailand-Myanmar border, Western tourists now see an endless stream of camera and film shops, food stalls, hotels topped with satellite dishes, and curio shops selling Golden Triangle T-shirts with photographs of blooming opium fields. A handful of villages that were once havens for opium producers, smugglers, and addicts have learned that tourists fascinated with the opium business will spend money to visit the area.

High on the list for tourists are souvenir opium pipes and other paraphernalia associated with smoking opium, such as small leather bags and tiny ceramic pots traditionally used to carry small amounts of opium and tiny oil lamps used to light the opium. Also of interest to visitors are opium dens that tour guides claim are authentic. As tourists are led inside, they witness what they are told are opium addicts reclining on wooden beds in a semiconscious state. Along the perimeter of the room, pipes, opium lamps, and satchels used to store the opium lend an authentic look.

Local entrepreneurs eager to cash in on the exotic mystique of the opium trade provide adventure cruises along small rivers where guides narrate the dangers of smuggling opium. As the boatmen paddle the canoes, a guide points to landing sites where they claim the drug is clandestinely sold. Further downstream they pass other small boats that the guides allege are used to transport opium. Whether the stories are true or merely invention, tourists enjoy what appears to be a thrilling and dangerous tour.

Politicians' Interest in Opium

Fields flooded with blooming opium poppies attract the attention of more than just farmers and opium bosses; legitimate politicians keep an eye on them as well. Any venture involving billions of dollars and providing the livelihood for millions of people is of interest to politicians, and the illegal opium trade is no exception. Although most governments publicly denounce the opium industry, they also know that opium production must be approached diplomatically. They understand that allowing the growth of poppies is often in their interests and those of their nations.

Within poppy-growing countries, politicians often turn a blind eye to poppy fields in exchange for political support. For example, a 2003 United Nations survey, revealed that the income of all Afghanistan poppy farmers was equivalent to half of all legitimate businesses in that country. Of greater concern to the authors of the survey, however, was the level of involvement of high-ranking officials that makes poppy eradication difficult if not impossible. As the authors claim, "Out of this drug chest, some government administrators and military commanders take a considerable share: the more they get used to this, the less likely it becomes that they will respect the law, be loyal to Kabul [Afghanistan's capital], and support the legal economy."⁴¹

When many influential Afghans profit from the opium trade, few politicians are willing to get rid of it. President Hamid Karzai denounces the crop but cannot afford to alienate his supporters, many of whom are poppy farmers and drug bosses. Two journalists, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, stated, "In political terms, it's a safe forecast to say that no serious effort will be made to interfere with the opium crop. To do so would be to deal the Karzai regime a serious blow."⁴²

America's Foreign Policy

Karzai's refusal to attack the opium harvest has implications for the United States. In 2001, American military forces invaded Afghanistan to avenge the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Their objective was to eliminate the man who took responsibility for the attacks, Osama bin Laden, and the Taliban government that supported him. After chasing the Taliban and bin Laden throughout Afghanistan, the United States chose Karzai to rule the country. In exchange for generous sums of money and military support, the United States made three requests of Karzai: establish a democracy, eradicate the last elements of the Taliban, and destroy the poppy fields.

Foreign policy analysts have praised Karzai for solid progress toward the first two objectives but not the third. Karzai has refused to act aggressively against the opium trade because of its lucrative income to those whose support is essential to Karzai's government. Although U.S. officials decry his reluctance to suppress the poppy crop, they are willing to tolerate it because, as one American official said, "Any intense eradication effort could imperil the stability of the government and hamper America's military campaign against the Taliban."⁴³

Reports have surfaced that President George W. Bush's administration has given up hope of reducing Afghanistan's opium trade. According to a 2002 article in the New York Times, "The U.S. government has 'quietly abandoned' efforts to reduce the crop this year. Instead, the U.S. will resort to a policy of persuading Afghan leaders to carry out a modest eradication program, if only

to show that they were serious in declaring a ban on opium production."⁴⁴

Representatives of American military forces in Afghanistan share this view. While searching for Taliban fighters, which is their highest priority, U.S. soldiers routinely discover opium fields but are under orders not to destroy them. Journalist Tim McGirk, writing for Time magazine, quoted one American diplomat as saying, "The attitude is, 'Hey, it's not our problem.'"⁴⁵ U.S. military spokesman Sergeant Major Harrison Sarles acknowledges, "We're not a drug task force. That's not part of our mission. Drugs? What drugs?"⁴⁶

The One Success

In 2000, according to the UN Drug Control Program, the poppy harvest in Afghanistan produced 3,276 tons of raw opium. This volume had roughly stayed the same for several years, and at the time there was no reason to assume it would dramatically change. But in 2001 it did, dropping to just 185 tons, the lowest levels ever recorded by the UNDCP.

This 94 percent decline in opium production was startling news to the world's law enforcement agencies, which had never been able to achieve much more than a 5 percent reduction in the drug's production. When asked to explain the plummet in production, the UNDCP pointed to a new revolutionary government that had seized power in 1996 called the Taliban, a strict fundamentalist Muslim sect that imposed its will on the Afghanistan population.

The Taliban rulers were not popular, but many Afghans, weary of the prevailing lawlessness in many parts of the country, were delighted by the Taliban's successes in stamping out corruption, restoring peace, and allowing commerce to flourish again. In 1999, after many years of international pressure, Taliban leader Mullah Omar issued a total ban on opium poppy planting for the next season because growing a narcotic is a violation of Muslim law, which forbids any type of intoxication. In a Vanity Fair article, journalist Maureen Orth, who traveled widely in Afghanistan, reported, "The Taliban ban on poppy growing was the largest, most successful interdiction of drugs in history."

American diplomats say that many of the local Afghan commanders upon whom they rely for political and military support are mixed up in the drug business. According to one American diplomat, "Without money from drugs, our friendly warlords can't pay their militias. It's as simple as that."⁴⁷

The Uphill Battle Against Opium

In 2014 the United States will reach the centennial of its opium prohibition. Yet in spite of that law and the tens of billions of dollars spent annually attempting to stamp out the drug, America's cities remain awash in opium and an assortment of drugs derived from it. Regardless of America's commitment to eradicate this highly addictive narcotic, law enforcement agencies admit that the flow to America's streets has shown no sign of subsiding. Opium has been a remarkably resilient opponent in America's war on drugs.

Many responsible policy makers, law enforcement officers, and community leaders are frankly skeptical about winning the war on opium. Most experts studying America's history of opium use and abuse agree that past and current governmental policies to eradicate, confiscate, or otherwise eliminate the drug have failed and will continue to do so for a variety of reasons. Foremost in the minds of many is the colossal profit margin on opium. Joseph D. McNamara, the former chief of police of Kansas City, Missouri; Miami, Florida; and San Jose, California, explains:

It's the money. After 33 years as a police officer in three of the country's largest cities, that is my message to the righteous politicians who obstinately proclaim that a war on drugs will lead to a drug-free America. About $500 of heroin or opium in a source country will bring in as much as $100,000 on the streets of an American city. All the cops, armies, prisons, and executions in the world cannot impede a market with that kind of tax-free profit-margin.⁴⁸

Another explanation often cited for the failure to suppress opium is the ubiquitous criminal element. Author Martin Booth views the problem this way:

The advantage in this terrible global game lies with the criminal. Just as the traffickers and dealers, the drug barons and smugglers manage to stay one step ahead of the enforcement officers chasing them. They will always find a friendly bank, a compliant accountant, an underpaid official, or a receptive lawyer to assist them.⁴⁹

Yet other experts recommend that consuming nations take a broader and more compassionate approach toward addressing economic development in poor opium-producing nations. Professor Barnett Rubin, director of studies for the Center for International Cooperation at New York University, suggests, "The fastest way to stop opium production is to enhance security and foster economic development. Nobody should be under the illusion that without security structures and economic development that the drug economy will be halted, or even significantly reduced."⁵⁰

Efforts of Consumer Nations

Lee P. Brown, who served as President Bill Clinton's first director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, blames America for its opium problem: "I'm not operating under any illusion that we will ever stop the growth of the opium poppy. What I'm saying is the best way to deal with the problem is not to use it. If we didn't use it in this country, it would be futile for the other countries to grow and try to satisfy a demand that does not exist."⁵¹

American social institutions joined forces with law enforcement agencies in the 1970s to prevent the use of opium. Today, in addition to the federal government, organizations as diverse as churches and synagogues, schools and universities, youth organizations, national health organizations, police and sheriff departments, and organized sports programs have programs in place to discourage the use of opium.

Private and public agencies in the United States and other consumer nations conduct educational programs aimed at deterring drug use in general and opium and heroin use in particular. Most programs are aimed at schoolchildren, because studies conducted by health institutes indicate that they are most vulnerable to peer pressure to experiment with drugs. Programs such as the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program send representatives to elementary and junior high schools to teach strategies for remaining drug free.

Among those who make suggestions or criticize government attempts is Peter G. Bourne, President Jimmy Carter's drug policy chief in 1977 and 1978, who plainly doubts the opium problem is solvable yet presents a realistic view of possibly controlling it: "There is no political mileage in saying we can't solve this problem. But I think the reality is that we cannot solve it in its entirety and that we have to accept that any measures we take are only going to be palliative"⁵²

Facing an uphill battle, many Americans nonetheless believe the cost to wage the war is worth paying. Some want to see more money spent on law enforcement, others on treatment and prevention, while a minority wants to buy and destroy the entire crop before it is harvested. The issues are complicated because they span international borders, include large numbers of people, and involve conflicting moral values. Whatever path is taken, it is certain that the cost to contest opium trafficking will continue to be an issue for many years.