Earlier I wrote a rather reactive post attacking Kennedy’s views on the conflict in Afghanistan. I stand by what I wrote earlier, but I was negligent not to note that Kennedy has brought forward one idea that I believe is essential to achieving long-term stability in Afghanistan: redirecting the illegal opium trade to the production of legal narcotics.
From Kennedy’s release:
Canada should take a leadership role in working with its international allies and the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) on demonstration projects to move the replacement of the opium economy forward. Another short-term solution is assisting the country to produce essential opium-based medicines such as morphine and codeine in accordance with the legal framework found in the new Afghanistan Counter- Narcotics Law passed in December 2005. Implementing these provisions would partly bring illegal opium cultivation under control, take the money away from the Taliban and provide new economic opportunity and hope to the poverty-stricken opium growing areas of Afghanistan.
It’s no secret that the opium trade has been used to fund the Taliban’s comeback and that attempts to eliminate the trade have been costly, ineffective and reduced support for the NATO mission tremendously among rural Afghanis. Unfortunately, I’ve seen very little to indicate that NATO is serious about finding alternative strategies given the USA’s funding and political support for the eradication program.
I can’t remember where I originally read about the idea that Afghanistan’s illegal opium production should be redirected to the legal trade but two points from the article stuck with me:
- buying the entire harvest of opium poppies at black market prices is tens of millions of dollars cheaper than the current eradication strategy
- Africa suffers from a critical shortage of opium-based painkillers.
I hadn’t seen any details describing how such a plan could operate until I came across this post at Liblogs this morning. Unfortunately the author seems to be using the article as a throwaway to attack the mission rather than recognize that it’s an important strategy that’s 100% in accordance with Liberal values and something everyone can support whether they want boots on the ground there or not.
Afghanistan faces a reconstruction crisis of an unprecedented scale. The illegal opium economy lies at the nexus of an extreme level of poverty and escalating violence, particularly in the southern part of the country. The US-led International Community has failed to unlock Afghanistan reconstruction crisis with an over-emphasis on aggressive counter narcotics strategies such as poppy crop eradication. The country’s share of opium production remains unchanged at 87 per cent of the world total, with 85 per cent of heroin consumed in Europe originating from Afghanistan. At the same time, however, opium poppy is the traditional crop and the raw material for essential medicines such as morphine and codeine.
Afghan opium represents is a huge potential to be re-directed into legal channels becoming a major driver for Afghanistan’s rural development and addressing the global shortage of opium-based medicines. Existing social control structures at different community levels would maximize the potential of opium, ensuring minimum diversion to the illegal market.
Kudos to Kennedy for originally raising this point. I hope all the candidates can get squarely behind some variant of this plan and pressure the government to make this critical change to our strategy in Afghanistan.
NOTE: I set my comment restrictions really tightly when I first started blogging to avoid commment spam, but I didn’t realize how insanely tight they were. I’ve opened up comments properly now and they should remain that way.
