Afghanistan's Opium Danger

The Financial Times and RFE-RL (scroll to near bottom) are reporting on the new UN report indicating that opium production has spread to 28 of Afghanistan's 32 provinces, and that the country is now responsible for a whopping 75% of the world's total opium supply. UNODC Director Antonio Maria Costa is now warning of the emergence of organized drug cartels which would undermine the central government in Kabul. Opium already accounts for $1 billion of a $4 billion economy, increasing the power of the warlords and other rogue elements who profit from it. Heraldo Munoz, another UN official, has linked the rising opium trade to the Taliban resurgence.

As it stands now, the Karzai government may already be a sort of narco-regime, as many high government officials hail from the warlord-driven Northern Alliance. Last month, the Christian Science Monitor ran a report on how the drug trade was already corrupting the Afghan National Army, as Afghanistan's warlord-commanders turn to it as keep up their private militias and curry favor the local farmers who see it as their only feasible livelihood. What would I do about this? I wouldn't rule out legalizing opium, or at least turning a blind eye to it, thus weakening the factions' control over the wealth generated without driving away the rural population. This may not be a long-term solution, but until reconstruction reaches the point where other bases for the economy become feasible, may be the best way to handle a problem we do not need. Besides, if a smaller amount of the opium profits were siphoned off through corruption, the rest could actually go to speed up the reconstruction process.