After Only One Year The Afghan Taliban Have Wiped Out Opium Production. This Raises Questions About What The U.S. And Its Opium Eradication Efforts Was Doing All Along

Data from Alcis shows that a majority of Afghan farmers switched from growing poppy to wheat in a single year 

Mint Press: Taliban’s Massively Successful Opium Eradication Raises Questions About What US Was Doing All Along  

The Taliban government in Afghanistan – the nation that until recently produced 90% of the world’s heroin – has drastically reduced opium cultivation across the country. Western sources estimate an up to 99% reduction in some provinces. This raises serious questions about the seriousness of U.S. drug eradication efforts in the country over the past 20 years. And, as global heroin supplies dry up, experts tell MintPress News that they fear this could spark the growing use of fentanyl – a drug dozens of times stronger than heroin that already kills more than 100,000 Americans yearly.  

The Taliban Does What the US Did Not 

It has already been called “the most successful counter-narcotics effort in human history.” Armed with little more than sticks, teams of counter-narcotics brigades travel the country, cutting down Afghanistan’s poppy fields. 

In April of last year, the ruling Taliban government announced the prohibition of poppy farming, citing both their strong religious beliefs and the extremely harmful social costs that heroin and other opioids – derived from the sap of the poppy plant – have wrought across Afghanistan.  

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WNU Editor: How is it that the U.S., after spending years and billions to eradicate Afghanistan's opium production, completely failed .... but the Taliban, with no money and armed with little more than sticks, succeeded within a year. 

I think the answer is obvious. Past Western-backed Afghan governments and the U.S. were not serious in eradicating Afghanistan's poppy fields

Taliban Bans Poppy Cultivation And The Drug Trade In Afghanistan

 

DW: Afghanistan: Taliban outlaw opium poppy cultivation, drug trade 

The Taliban are taking steps to halt Afghanistan's opium trade even as the country's economy crumbles. 

It is unclear how the Taliban government plans to replace this illicit source of income for millions of farmers. 

The Taliban said Sunday that they are banning the cultivation of opium poppy, which is used as a raw material to produce illicit drugs like heroin. 

The ban comes during opium harvesting season in southern Afghanistan, and a Taliban spokesman said that farmers could be jailed and their crops burned if they harvested poppy. 

The order also outlaws the trade of heroin, hashish and alcohol.  

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Taliban Bans Poppy Cultivation And The Drug Trade In Afghanistan  

Taliban clamp down on drugs, announce ban on poppy harvest -- AP 

Taliban BANS opium: Hardline rulers of Afghanistan say anyone caught growing poppy crop will be subjected to Sharia law -- Daily Mail  

Taliban bans drug cultivation, including lucrative opium -- CNN  

Taliban announces official ban on poppy cultivation -- The Hill  

Taliban chief orders ‘strict’ ban on opium poppy cultivation -- Al Jazeera

The U.S. Military Has Ended Its Campaign To Target Taliban Drug Labs And Networks

Afghan farmers work at a poppy field in Jalalabad province, May 5, 2012.

Time: The U.S. Sent Its Most Advanced Fighter Jets to Blow Up Cheap Opium Labs. Now It's Cancelling the Program

After hundreds of airstrikes failed to curtail the Taliban’s $200 million-a-year opium trade, the U.S. military quietly ended a yearlong campaign that targeted drug labs and networks laced around the Afghan countryside.

The end of the operation, code-named Iron Tempest, comes as Trump Administration officials engage in direct peace talks with Taliban leaders that could end the 17-year-old war.

The U.S. military first began targeting Taliban narcotics facilities with airstrikes and Special Operations raids in November 2017 when opium production jumped to record highs in Afghanistan. At the time, U.S. commanders estimated the Taliban operated up to 500 drug labs, which helped fuel their nearly two-decade long insurgency.

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WNU Editor: This is an admission that after years of anti-narcotics operations in Afghanistan, the entire program is a failure.

This Is How America Lost The Drug War Against The Taliban

A U.S. Marine patrols through a poppy field in a village in the Golestan district of Farah province, Afghanistan (Reuters)

Politico: The secret story of how America lost the drug war with the Taliban

A high-stakes plan to indict Afghan drug lords and insurgency leaders on criminal conspiracy charges ran afoul of the Obama team. Five years later, it remains buried under Trump.

As Afghanistan edged ever closer to becoming a narco-state five years ago, a team of veteran U.S. officials in Kabul presented the Obama administration with a detailed plan to use U.S. courts to prosecute the Taliban commanders and allied drug lords who supplied more than 90 percent of the world’s heroin — including a growing amount fueling the nascent opioid crisis in the United States.

The plan, according to its authors, was both a way of halting the ruinous spread of narcotics around the world and a new — and urgent — approach to confronting ongoing frustrations with the Taliban, whose drug profits were financing the growing insurgency and killing American troops. But the Obama administration’s deputy chief of mission in Kabul, citing political concerns, ordered the plan to be shelved, according to a POLITICO investigation.

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WNU Editor: A depressing read, but one that should surprise no one.

The War For Control of Afghanistan's Drug Trade Is Escalating

Farmers tended their opium crop last year in Helmand Province. Unlike previous years, there will be no serious efforts to eradicate the opium crop in Helmand because of Taliban advances and rampant corruption, with both sides battling over the drug trade. Credit Bryan Denton for The New York Times

New York Times: Corrupt Combatants Fight for Control of Lucrative Afghan Drug Trade

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan — Afghans have an expression: “Well, whatever has happened, we are still skinny.” In other words, they have not gotten rich yet, try as they might.

It is an expression heard often here in Helmand Province, the southwestern region that is the world capital of opium and heroin production. Afghanistan accounts for 90 percent of the world’s heroin; more than two-thirds of that comes from Helmand’s opium poppies, according to United Nations figures.

Sometimes, the expression is uttered enviously — how did we miss out? Other times, it is delivered with greedy sarcasm — how much more can we get before the feeding frenzy is over?

This year’s first poppy harvest season has just begun, and the bright red flowers are garish splotches across the heavily irrigated landscape. But unlike in previous years, there will be no serious efforts to eradicate the opium crop in Helmand, because of a combination of Taliban advances and out-of-control corruption, with both sides battling over the drug trade.

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WNU Editor: With no one even trying to eradicate this year's crop .... here is an easy prediction .... it is going to be a bumper crop that will probably depress prices and result in even more conflict and warfare later this year.

A Look Afghanistan's Billion Dollar Drug War

Al Jazeera: ‘They’ll Never Stop Us’: The Drug Runners Fueling Afghanistan’s Epidemic

Authorities appear to be unable or unwilling to stop those behind the multibillion dollar trafficking industry

Afghanistan is in the grips of a drug epidemic that some say is far more dangerous than the Taliban. And those behind the trade remain defiant in the face of efforts to rid the country of their presence.

“They’ll never stop us. You see, we’ve tasted the profits, so we’ll never let go,” said one smuggler when asked whether the government would ever be able to stop the illegal business.

“Sometimes they try and raid us, but we have lots of drug labs and places to hide the goods. The border is also very porous, so there’s no way to stop the flow,” the smuggler told Al Jazeera’s “101 East.”

WNU Editor: An eye-opening look at Afghanistan's drug trade .... and .... the enormous damage that it has done to Afghanistan. The above video is a must see.

U.S. Senate Report: Afghanistan Is At Risk Of Becoming A Narco-State

Senators: Without US Aid, Afghanistan Turns Into Narco-State -- The Hill

Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) released a bipartisan report Tuesday that aims to fight the Afghanistan drug trade.

“The Afghan drug trade funds the Taliban, fuels corruption and creates major public health challenges,” Feinstein said Tuesday. “Afghanistan could become a narco-state without an effective, comprehensive and coordinated counternarcotics strategy, coupled with unprecedented levels of international cooperation.

“If we don’t act, Afghanistan’s drug trade could undermine hard won gains and U.S. investments and threaten the safety of the citizens of Afghanistan and neighboring countries.”

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More News On Afghanistan's Growing Opium/Heroin Trade

Report Warns Afghanistan May Become 'Narco-State' -- Newsmax
Afghanistan: UN officials urge reforms, fight against drug trade to ensure country’s security -- UN News Centre
Afghanistan’s Thriving Drug Trade Worries Neighbours -- John C. K. Daly, Silk Road Reporters
Afghan Opium Cultivation Rises to Record Levels -- New York Times
Kabul Residents Watch as Heroin Addiction Grows -- New York Times
Afghanistan: The Making of a Narco State -- Matthieu Aikins, Rolling Stone

More New Yorkers Have Died From Afghan Heroin Since 9/11 Than U.S.Soldiers Have Died During The Same Period Of Time IServing n Afghanistan

The Consequences Of America’s Invasion Of Afghanistan: NYC Heroin Deaths Highest In A Decade -- Zero Hedge

While back in May Obama promised America's mission in Afghanistan was over, and all US troops would leave the country by the end of 2016, the "unintended" consequences of the US presence in this favored by al-Qaeda country will haunt America for a long time. And especially New York, where according to a new report by the Department of Mental Hygiene, the number of people who died from unintentional heroin overdoses in New York City last year was the highest in over a decade.

As WaPo reports, in New York, "where the overall rate of drug overdose deaths has dramatically risen since 2010, there is a national problem playing out across the city’s streets. The number of overdoses involving heroin in the city has significantly increased since 2010, accounting for more than half of New York City’s overdoses last year. And more than three-quarters of the overdoses in the city involved an opioid of some kind."

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Update:  US Military Deaths in Afghanistan at 2,202 -- AP

My Comment: These numbers puts everything into perspective.

The Pentagon Issues Their Strongest Warning That The Drug Trade Will Threaten U.S. Goals In Afghanistan

Resurgent Afghanistan Drug Trade Threatening US Goals, Pentagon Warns -- Christian Science Monitor

In the sharpest warnings they have ever issued on the topic, Pentagon officials told Congress the growing opium trade is threatening the costly US war effort to build a stable Afghanistan.

The drug problem in Afghanistan is growing, and it threatens to undermine the US war effort of building a stable country there, top Pentagon officials say in some of the sharpest warnings they have ever issued on the topic.

The lucrative opium trade has been surging in recent years, even as less of the crop is being seized, officials and recent reports say, and with the US military presence in the country winding down, prospects for keeping the illicit business in check are dwindling.

Just how to take on Afghanistan’s opium poppy trade, however, has long been a tricky proposition for the US military.

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My Comment: These warnings are too late. Everyone knows that U.S. forces are leaving and with it is their ability to influence official Afghan drug policy.

Afghanistan Is On The Verge Of Becoming A Narco State

Opium cultivation by province in Afghanistan in 2013. SIGAR

U.S. Official: Afghanistan Could Become 'Narco-Criminal State' -- NPR

Despite a $7 billion effort to eradicate opium production in Afghanistan, poppy cultivation there is at its highest level since the U.S. invasion more than a decade ago, sparking corruption, criminal gangs and providing the insurgency with hard cash, says John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction.

In testimony before the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, he warns Wednesday that Afghanistan could degenerate into a narco-criminal state.

"The situation in Afghanistan is dire with little prospect for improvement in 2014 or beyond," Sopko says. "Afghan farmers are growing more opium poppies today than at any time in their modern history."

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More News On Concerns That Afghanistan Is On The Verge Of Becoming A Narco State

IG for Afghanistan paints grim picture of possible narco-criminal state -- Stars and Stripes
Afghan opium production on the rise despite U.S. troops, inspector says -- NBC
Risk of nacre-criminal state in Afghanistan: US report -- Business Recorder
Afghanistan seeks help in drugs fight after opium crop hits record -- Reuters
U.S. vows to help Afghanistan with narcotics problem -- UPI
With Afghan drawdown ongoing, U.S. to set up center in Bahrain to continue anti-drug efforts -- Washington Post
Afghanistan Watchdog Warns Of 'Narco-Criminal State' After 12 Years And $7 Billion In U.S. Aid -- Matt Sledge, Huffington Post
The Looming Narco-State in Afghanistan -- D. B. Grady, Defense One/The Atlantic

Has Afghanistan Been Abandoned To The Drug Lords?

America Abandons Afghanistan to Drug Lords -- Owen Matthews and Anna Nemtsova, Newsweek

This year, Western troops will withdraw from Afghanistan after 13 years of war. They’ll leave behind an undefeated enemy – as well as an Afghan government that’s shaky, corrupt and only nominally democratic.

But the West will be counting the true cost of the war for years to come – no longer in blood and treasure but in an epidemic of heroin addiction that’s sweeping the world, driven by an explosion of Afghan opium production.

Afghanistan’s drug output is up by nearly 50 percent in the last year, according to a recent United Nations report. Afghan opium profits totaled $68 billion globally, but less than 10 percent of that remains in Afghanistan, said Jean-Luc Lemahieu, head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

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My Comment: Opium production in Afghanistan has been a fact of life for centuries. America has not abandoned Afghanistan to the drug lords .... this is more of a situation in which Afghanistan is only returning to what has been the normal state of affairs in that country for generations.

Is Afghanistan Fragmenting Into A Criminal State?

SNOW TREK - U.S. soldiers and Afghan border police hike from their landing zone to Observation Point 12 along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, Jan. 21, 2013. The soldiers are assigned to the 101st Airborne Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team. U.S. Army Photo by Sgt. Jon Heinrich

Drug Trade Could Splinter Afghanistan Into Fragmented Criminal State – UN -- The Guardian

UN expert warns west of danger of not stepping up efforts to tackle opium production in Afghanistan after record $1bn harvest

Afghanistan's booming narcotics trade risks splintering the country into a "fragmented criminal state" if the government and its western allies do not step up efforts to tackle opium production, a senior UN official has warned.

Opium farming in Afghanistan, the world's main producer of the drug, hit a record high this year, with farmers harvesting a crop worth nearly $1bn (£610m) to them, and far more to the traffickers who take about four-fifths of the profit.

Jean-Luc Lemahieu, outgoing head of the UN office on drugs and crime in Afghanistan, believes opium production is likely to soar beyond this year's record levels before it falls – and that the transformation of the country's corrupt economy will take up to two decades.

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My Comment: From my point of view Afghanistan has always been a criminal state ... this is nothing new.

The U.S. - Afghan War Against Drugs Is A Dysmal Failure

A member of the Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan in Lashkar Gah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan, showing seized heroin. Each bag contains a street value worth $112,000 of heroin rocks. Courtesy of SAC Neil Chapman (RAF)/Wikimedia Commons

As U.S. Withdraws From Afghanistan, Poppy Trade It Spent Billions Fighting Still Flourishes -- Washington Post

The United States is withdrawing troops from Afghanistan having lost its battle against the country’s narcotics industry, marking one of the starkest failures of the 2009 strategy the Obama administration pursued in an effort to turn around the war.

Despite a U.S. investment of nearly $7 billion since 2002 to combat it, the country’s opium market is booming, propelled by steady demand and an insurgency that has assumed an increasingly hands-on role in the trade, according to law enforcement officials and counternarcotics experts. As the war economy contracts, opium poppies, which are processed into heroin, are poised to play an ever larger role in the country’s economy and politics, undercutting two key U.S. goals: fighting corruption and weakening the link between the insurgency and the drug trade.

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My Comment: $7 billion wasted. Here is an easy prediction .... once U.S. forces are gone this drug trade is only going to explode.

Afghanistan's Opiate Production Is Soaring

Farmers walk at a poppy field in Jalalabad province (Reuters/Parwiz)

Afghanistan Stores 40,000 Tons Of Opiates – Russia’s Drug Watchdog -- RT

Some forty thousand tons of opiates are stockpiled in Afghanistan, Russian authorities revealed, urging coalition forces to focus on the elimination of drug laboratories in the Islamic Republic.

It is unlikely that the situation with the production and trafficking of drugs will worsen after the scheduled withdrawal of NATO combat troops from Afghanistan at the end of 2014, says Viktor Ivanov, the head of Russia's Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN).

“Narcotics manufacturing is well run in Afghanistan. Around 40,000 tons of opiates are already stored there. So, in fact, they have reached saturation point,” he said as quoted by Interfax.

The amount of drugs in Afghanistan is so large, that markets in neighboring countries are overloaded, Ivanov added.

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My Comment: I hear it all the time from my relatives in Russia .... the opiate/heroin problem has reached crisis proportions .... and all of these drugs are coming from Afghanistan. And while I do not know if the claims that 40,000 tons of opiates are being stored in Afghanistan is true (I have my doubts) .... I do know that the war against heroin production in Afghanistan has been a complete failure .... and it will reach uncontrollable levels when Western forces have finally left.

Is Afghanistan's Future To Be One Where The Drug Mafias Rule?

Afghan farmers work on a poppy field in the Grishk District of Helmand Province. (File photo)

The Taliban's Life Of Luxury -- Ron Moreau, The Daily Beast

Is Afghanistan destined to be run by a drug mafia?

Pashtunabad—a poor, wind- and flyblown suburb of Quetta—is the type of Pakistani town where commanders in the Afghan Taliban generally lived after being kicked out of their home country in 2001. Modest cement-block and mud-brick, one- and two-story homes sit cheek by jowl along the narrow, largely unpaved streets and open sewers. Graffiti such as “Long Live Mullah Omar” and “Long Live the Jihad” are scrawled on walls; the black-and-white flag of a pro-Taliban political party flies over many homes.

Living in a town like Pashtunabad carried advantages for the Afghan Taliban’s leadership: it allowed them to fly under the radar and cultivate an image as average Joes, even as they were directing an insurgency against U.S. troops across the border. But in recent years, some Taliban commanders have begun moving out of places like Pashtunabad—and into new neighborhoods that could not be more different. They have transformed rural districts of mud-brick homes in places like Kuchlak—a stretch of poor and arid land populated largely by fruit and vegetable farmers, located on the road from Quetta to the Afghan border—into little boomtowns. Farther to the south, they have abandoned Karachi’s poor Sohrab Goth neighborhood for wealthier developments like Clifton, where they live in the vicinity of the Pakistani elite, including businessmen, entertainers, artists, and politicians. (The Bhutto family has a sprawling compound in the area, and Benazir Bhutto’s widower, Pakistani President Ali Asif Zardari, often stays there.) Many Clifton residents live in such a heavy security bubble, they probably don’t even know the Taliban are in town.

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My Comment: The opium/heroin trade is obviously profitable .... producing money that these Taliban drug lords (and their Afghan allies) have become dependent on. Will they be willing to give up on this cash cow .... I doubt it. Will they be a thorn in Afghanistan's (and Pakistan's) future .... probably. But will they be able to accumulate enough wealth and power to run Afghanistan .... I am not sure. For the moment .... they are influencing Afghan politics, but running the country is an entirely different thing, and I doubt that Afghanistan's neighboring states will tolerate such a situation for any period of time.

Afghanistan's Opium Epidemic

A British soldier patrols a poppy field in Helmand. Production has apparently tripled since troops arrived in 2006

Opium Addicts Of Afghanistan: Number Of Junkies TRIPLES To 150,000 Despite War On Drugs -- Daily Mail

* United Nations warns of epidemic as opium production soars
* Problem has got worse since British troops entered in 2006
* More than 1m Afghans are addicted to one drug or another
* Dirt cheap price of drugs exacerbating the problem

A heroin addict father smokes the deadly drug contentedly as his two innocent children sit watching him adoringly.

The oblivious man is part of a growing epidemic in the war-torn country of Afghanistan, which has seen the number of opium and heroin addicts tripling to 150,000, according to latest United Nations Figures, while 225,000 used the drug in 2012.

In a country with a population 35million, there are now more than 1m addicts of one drug or another.

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My Comment: This is a health crisis that is going to last for generations.

Afghanistan's Booming Heroin Trade

Killing fields: Farmers in Afghanistan gather an opium crop which will be made into heroin. Photo from The Daily Mail

Look On The Bright Side: There’s A Roaring Heroin Trade In Afghanistan, And It's All Thanks To Us -- Mark Steel, The Independent

It just goes to show that, even in the most difficult circumstances, with a popular product and thoughtful marketing, there are always business opportunities

At last, amid all the bleak news that comes from Afghanistan, there’s a success story to justify the British and American presence there.

Because one of the main aims of Western intervention in foreign affairs is to establish the sort of small-business, entrepreneurial spirit that can rescue a struggling economy. And according to the United Nations, there’s been another 18 per cent growth in the heroin trade, in just the past year.

It goes to show that, even in the most difficult circumstances, with a popular product and thoughtful marketing, there are always business opportunities for those with a flair for entrepreneurial vision.

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My Comment: It appears that it is going to be another record year for Afghanistan's heroin producers .... but the human cost from such a trade is now reaching catastrophic levels.

Update: Afghanistan, the drug addiction capital -- Tahir Qadiry BBC News

A Look At Afghanistan's Drug Economy

Why Afghanistan May Never Eradicate Opium -- Dawood Azami, BBC

Despite the best efforts of Afghanistan's drug eradication programme, the BBC has learned that farmers in several Afghan provinces, which had been deemed poppy-free, have gone back to cultivating opium poppies.

For years Afghanistan has been the world's largest producer of opium, the raw material for heroin, most of which is exported to Iran, Russia and Europe.

Programmes by the Nato-led Isaf force, the Afghan government and the UN to entice farmers away from cultivating the flower met with some success.

But farmers say that the high sale price of opium is difficult for them to resist.

They have another gripe: although the Afghan government and the international community initiated opium eradication programmes, many farmers say promises to provide high-quality seeds and fertiliser, carry out developmental projects and promote alternative careers have not been kept.

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More News On Afghanistan's Drug Trade

$200 million in Afghan heroin seized in drug bust near Moscow -- RT
The Ugly Truth behind the Opium Policy -- Mohammad Rasouli, Khaama Press
Little relief for Afghan drug addicts -- Deutsche Welle
The plight of Afghanistan’s opium brides -- RAWA/Deutche Welle
Afghan Opium Brides -- Emily Simons, The International
Afghan kids suffer opium addiction -- News24
Opium is currency -- Economist
Afghans Sell Daughters to Pay Drug Lords -- Osun Defender
Afghan corruption, opium, and the strange case of Kam Air -- Christian Science Monitor
Afghanistan, Garden of Empire -- Julien Mercille, Antiwar.com

Opium And Heroin Addiction Is Going To Be Afghanistan's Long Term Problem

In Afghanistan, most children become addicts as a result of their parents - passively inhaling their fathers’ opium smoke in the house. (Reuters)

Afghanistan’s Growing Number Of Child Drug Addicts -- Al Arabiya

They play badminton, kick a ball around and huddle over computer games just like normal children.

Except that they are recovering drug addicts aged around three to 12, representing a growing proportion of drug users in war-torn Afghanistan.

In response, increasing numbers of rehabilitation centers are weaning such children off their addiction and giving them a new appetite for life in a country that produces 90 percent of the world’s opium used to make heroin.

While there are no statistics for kids, the rate of relapse is high for their parents, experts say.

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Update: Adolescent drug addiction on the rise in Afghanistan -- Radio Australia

My Comment: I suspect that these numbers are just the tip of the iceberg.

The Afghan Drug Trade Is Creating A Security Crisis Throughout Central Asia

RIA Novosti (Oct. 23, 2009): The most modern and the best equipped laboratories processing opium poppy into heroin are located in the northern provinces of Afghanistan near the Tajik, Turkmen and Uzbek borders, which are areas of influence of the Northern Alliance. The real threat comes from drug bosses operating in the north of Afghanistan, "and the coalition forces are not conducting an effective fight against them," the official said. RAWA

Afghan Drug Trade Sends Tremors -- Wall Street Journal

Dispute Over Trafficking Sparks Security Crisis Along Opium Route Through Neighboring Tajikistan.

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan—A dispute over the drug trade lies at the heart of a security crisis that has gripped this Central Asian nation, as Afghanistan's opium industry sows instability across the region.

Senior Tajik law enforcement officials are involved in this trade, Western officials say, including a border commander targeted by government forces last week in the worst violence since the country's civil war ended in 1997.

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My Comment: For Russia and neighboring Central Asian countries .... the heroin that is coming out of Afghanistan is now creating a social and health crisis that is reaching epidemic proportions. Expect Russia to become more actively involved in combating this drug trade .... and trying it's best to keep NATO forces in Afghanistan as long as possible to combat the drug lords and their Taliban allies.