Bleak outlook for Afghan drug war

[unhappycamper]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/SOU-02-140314.html



Bleak outlook for Afghan drug war
By Alex Pollard-Lipkis
Mar 14, '14

~snip~

The United States has played a central role in developing and supporting Afghan counternarcotics strategy for well over a decade. Since 2002, the US government has appropriated $7.5 billion for counternarcotics funding in Afghanistan, which accounts for 7% of the $102 billion that Washington has appropriated for relief and reconstruction in the country. Despite this enormous investment, Afghan opium poppy cultivation increased by 36% from 2012 to 2013 - a record high, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

If costly interdiction and eradication strategies have been unsuccessful even with a strong US military presence, they won't stand a chance after 2014. Even if the United States can provide the Afghan government with the necessary training and support to pursue these strategies, no amount of funding can create the political will to aggressively confront all aspects of drug production and trafficking.

But the drug warriors are undeterred. At a recent hearing before the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, William Brownfield, Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, conceded that US counternarcotics programs are "works in progress," but insisted that continued counternarcotics support is essential to success in Afghanistan. But increases in poppy cultivation and the reported decline in poppy eradication by provincial authorities over the past several years indicate that current supply-side strategies just don't work.

In a repeat of Plan Colombia, eradication has left rural Afghan farmers without a steady income and more vulnerable to the influence of extremist groups and black market traders. And as long as opium remains valuable, the crops that have been eradicated will always be replaced. Successful poppy eradication in one area simply drives opium production to another area - and drives up the price in the process. This phenomenon is called "the balloon effect," since squeezing a balloon in one spot simply causes it to expand in another.