Paulo José dos Reis Pereira; Maria Gabriela de Oliveira Vieira
Rev. Carta Inter., Belo Horizonte, v. 17, n. 1, e1225, 2022
1-25
Afghanistan in International
Opium Control Policy
1
Afeganistão na política
internacional de controle do ópio
Afganistán en la política
internacional de control del opio
10.21530/ci.v17n1.2022.1225
Paulo José dos Reis Pereira*
Maria Gabriela de Oliveira Vieira**
Abstract
In this article, we propose to discuss the causes of the illegal
opium market in Afghanistan from a complementary perspective
to those currently present in the literature, by focusing on the
international policy of the drug control system established by the
UN. Using historical and qualitative analysis, we interpret the
UN international conventions that permit the legal production
of opium in the world in light of relevant historical events. We
conclude that the international drug control regime, by responding
to the political and economic interests of the main actors of the
legal opioid market, has contributed to Afghanistan becoming
the world’s largest illegal producer of opium.
Keywords: Afghanistan, International Drug Control, Opium,
International Security.
1 This article was supported by PUC-SP Research Incentive Plan (PIPEq). The
authors are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.
* Doutor em Ciência Política/Política Internacional pela Universidade Estadual
de Campinas (UNICAMP) e Professor na Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo
(PUC-SP). (pjrpereira@pucsp.br) ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8334-9448.
** Bacharel em Relações Internacionais pela Universidade Federal do Rio Grande
do Sul (UFRGS) e Mestranda no Programa de Pós-Graduação em Relações
Internacionais San Tiago Dantas (UNESP-UNICAMP-PUC-SP).
(maria.g.vieira95@gmail.com). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9718-412X.
Artigo submetido em 30/08/2021 e aprovado em 20/12/2021.
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Resumo
Nesse artigo, propomos discutir as causas do mercado ilegal de ópio no Afeganistão por uma
perspectiva complementar às atualmente existentes, centrando-se na política internacional
do sistema de controle de drogas estabelecido pela ONU. Com uma análise histórica e
qualitativa, interpretamos as convenções internacionais da ONU que organizaram a produção
legal de ópio no mundo à luz de relevantes acontecimentos históricos. Concluímos que o
controle internacional das drogas, ao responder a interesses políticos e econômicos dos
principais atores do mercado legal de opioides, contribuiu para o Afeganistão tornar-se o
maior produtor ilegal desta droga no mundo.
Palavras-Chave: Afeganistão, Controle Internacional das Drogas, Ópio, Segurança Internacional.
Resumen
En este artículo, nos proponemos discutir las causas del mercado ilegal del opio en Afganistán
desde una perspectiva complementaria a las existentes en la actualidad, centrándonos en
la política internacional del sistema de control de drogas establecido por la ONU. Con un
análisis histórico y cualitativo, interpretamos las convenciones internacionales de la ONU
que organizaron la producción legal de opio en el mundo a la luz de relevantes hechos
históricos. Concluimos que el control internacional de drogas, al responder a los intereses
políticos y económicos de los principales actores del mercado legal de opioides, contribuyó
a que Afganistán se convirtiera en el mayor productor ilegal de esta droga en el mundo.
Palabras Clave: Afganistán, Fiscalización Internacional de Drogas, Opio, Seguridad
Internacional.
Introduction
Afghanistan is the largest illegal producer of opium in the world, accounting
for approximately 84% of opium production in the last five years. This illicit opium
production is identified by the United Nations (UN) and the main international
powers as a contemporary problem whose perverse effects on individuals and
countries must be tackled (UNODC 2020).
The causes for the existence of this huge illicit production of opioids are
varied, and the literature on the topic takes perspectives that vary with reference
to the domestic dynamics of the country from which it originates. Briefly, there are
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analyses that focus on the fragility of the Afghan State (Felbab-Brown 2013), the
country’s historical opium production culture (Mansfield 2016b; Bradford 2019),
economic dynamics (Goodhand 2005), internal violence, involving politicians,
“warlords” and criminal groups (Bove and Elia 2013), the global demand for
heroin and similar drugs (Kreutzmann 2007) and the invasion of the country
by the United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) after the
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in the context of the Bush administration’s
War on Terror (Swain and Corti 2009).
In this article, we propose to discuss the causes of the illegal opium market
in Afghanistan from a perspective that complements those in the literature and
is centered on the international policy of the drug control system established by
the UN throughout the 20th century.
More specifically, our concern is to understand how the historical evolution
of the international drug control system has relegated Afghanistan to the position
of a global pariah as an illegal producer of opioids. This analysis is made in
relation to the legal market for this drug, which currently involves more than a
dozen countries. These countries are authorized by the UN Economic and Social
Council (ECOSOC) and the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) to grow
and process the plant that is the source of opium, i.e., the opium poppy, to meet
the demands of medical consumption of opium worldwide via pharmaceutical
corporations. The question that guides our analysis is: what international dynamics
excluded Afghanistan from the list of legal opium producer countries, thus
encouraging the development of a huge illicit market?
Relevant factors in this analysis include the impact of international drug
control mechanisms on the functioning of the global market for psychoactive
substances and the imitation of these mechanisms by countries (Pereira 2021b).
In keeping with the assessment made by Reiss (2014, 7), we assume that this
formalized control results from and responds to the political and economic
interests of the main public and private actors in the international system that,
historically, have been involved in “the productive power of drugs—and drug
control—to consolidate their political authority and secure their interests within
an increasingly integrated global political economy. They sought to monopolize
the licit.”
In this historical and qualitative analysis, we draw on the UN drug control
conventions as sources since they established the operating norms and prohibitions
for the legal production of opium worldwide. The main of these conventions are
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the “Protocol for Limiting and Regulating the Cultivation of the Poppy Plant, the
Production of, International and Wholesale Trade in, and use of Opium” of 1953
and the “Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs” of 1961, as amended by the 1972
protocol. These conventions are interpreted in the light of a bibliography that
makes the historical reconstruction of diplomatic (McAllister 2000) and other
events, both internationally (Courtwright 2001) and within the Afghan State
(Mansfield 2016b), that had an impact on the object of this research, namely,
the omission of Afghanistan from the list of countries authorized to produce
opium legally.
The article will be divided into four parts, in addition to this introduction. In
the first part, we discuss early international opium control efforts and Afghanistan’s
place in the debate on the subject. In the second part, we analyze the construction
of the international drug control system’s current legal opium production licensing
model and the exclusion of Afghanistan from the list of authorized countries. In
the third part, we consider the private interests of the pharmaceutical industry in
the regulation of opioids and the effects of this on the Afghan case, analyzing the
debate on proposals to include Afghanistan in the list of legal opium producers.
We conclude the article by analyzing how international drug control responds
to political interests and the dynamics of the legal opioid market.
Beginnings of international opium control
and the place of Afghanistan
Opium, an agriculturally based drug derived from the opium poppy, was
the of the international control in the early 20th century. Its medical, economic
and political relevance had expanded in the previous century and had even led
to armed conflict, the Opium Wars. The global expansion of the opium market
was linked to the various technical and technological developments in medical
and especially pharmaceutical science, the latter going on to become a major
industry. Opium and its derivatives, used for a huge set of medical treatments
related to pain control and anesthesia, assumed a prominent place in this context,
remaining one of the main foci of the debate on international drug control
throughout the 20th and 21st centuries (Courtwright 2001).
The first drug control convention, in which opium featured prominently,
aimed at imposing a degree of organization on the expanding market for the
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drug. Far from being a “war on drugs,” control was institutionalized through
market regulations to ensure the adequate supply of medicines while limiting
and delineating the legal limits of their circulation (Reiss 2014). The International
Opium Convention of 1912 was the first of these, followed by several others over
the following decades. This network of international norms provided the structure
for a system for the international circulation of drugs and defined increasingly
detailed procedures to determine which drugs should be placed under stricter
control, with the main guideline being the restriction of their use for medical
and scientific ends. These norms provided for the worldwide expansion of a
legal market for opium and other drugs, operated by emerging pharmaceutical
corporations (McAllister 2000).
From limitation to monopoly
Afghanistan’s relationship with opium production goes back a long way.
According to Bradford (2019), it predates European interest in the drug. Until the
1930s, Afghan poppy cultivation was not significant, being concentrated in a few
southern provinces. The 1930s and 1940s brought profound changes to opium
production both internationally and domestically in many countries. The Second
World War (WWII), while causing a disruption of the conventional channels of
global trade and production of narcotic drugs with anesthetic properties, such as
opium, also saw a huge increase in the demand for narcotics for medical purposes.
Despite its neutrality in the war, Afghanistan became a reliable source of raw
opium for the group of Allied countries producing narcotic drugs, especially for
the United States (Mansfield 2016a).
Prior to the war, the production and trade of Afghan opium had been carried
out under the aegis of the government, by the state-owned Shirkat-e Taryak
(“Opium Company”). However, the rapid expansion of production, encouraged
by the boom in demand, was not accompanied by the formal licensing of new
crops, causing the government to lose its monopoly and control of the opium
industry (Bradford 2019). The emergence of several producers in various parts
of the country led to the emergence of a decreasingly formalized and organized
economy.
After WWII, the Afghan government sought to establish good relations
with the United States. Investing in this relationship meant securing financial
aid and access to the US narcotics market. The prevailing appraisal was that the
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modernization of Afghanistan required its participation in global markets, with
opium providing a gateway to do so. Establishing relationships with countries that
had the infrastructure for the manufacture of medicines thus became essential
(Bradford 2015). It was during this period that Afghanistan began to be pressed
to accede to the drug control system that was under construction. To be part of
the licit global opium trade, i.e., to be able to export raw materials and import
narcotics, the country would have to ratify the main conventions in force at the
time, namely the Hague Convention of 1912 and the Convention for Limiting
the Manufacture and Regulating the Distribution of Narcotic Drugs of 1931
(Bradford 2015).
Before the end of World War II, the opium-producing countries (Afghanistan,
China, Iran, Mexico, Turkey, the USSR, the United Kingdom — India and Burma
— and Yugoslavia) engaged with the USA, within the scope of the League of
Nations and the Advisory Committee on Traffic in Opium, in an attempt to find
a means to limit poppy cultivation and opium production (UNODC 1953). The
objective was to restrict production for use by the expanding field of Western
formal medicine and restrict non-medical uses, even in regions where these
might be traditional, without causing financial losses in producing countries or
shortages of raw materials that might affect manufacturers.
The large increase in raw opium production during World War II, beyond
the licit demand, led to the development of new and strict rules at the end of
the war (UNODC 1953; Silva 2013). The emergence of the United States as a
superpower and the expansion of its pharmaceutical industry played a decisive
role in setting the movement towards regulation in motion (Pereira 2021b; Reiss
2014). As part of these efforts, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) was
established in 1946 in the newly created UN ECOSOC. The CND was charged with
managing the dynamics of international drug control, determining the medical
and scientific requirements for the inclusion and/or removal of substances from
the international control system, and a series of other relevant aspects that had
an impact on the decision not to include Afghanistan on the list of traditional
opium-producing countries.
As a way of responding to the need to deal with the growing opium production
of the period, two competing proposals within the scope of the CND/ECOSOC were
made between 1949 and 1951. The first of these, a draft provisional agreement,
was prepared by an ad hoc committee composed of the main opium producers
at the time: India, Iran, Turkey, the USSR, and Yugoslavia (ECOSOC 1948).
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The proposal reaffirmed the call for limited opium production for medicinal
and scientific purposes and established an international monopoly on opium
production by a group of traditional poppy producers, namely Turkey, Iran,
India, and Yugoslavia. The opium-importing countries initially agreed with the
proposal (UNODC 1953; McAllister 2000; Collins 2015). However, disagreements
regarding the price of opium as set by the monopoly-holding countries, the form
to be taken by the trade inspection system and competition for poppy straw
exports made a consensus vis-à-vis the proposal unfeasible (UNODC 1953).
According to McAllister (2000), transnational pharmaceutical companies pressured
governments to reject the idea of a monopoly, fearing that such an arrangement
would result in higher prices.
The second proposal, a draft protocol to limit opium production inspired by the
1931 Convention, was presented to the CND by French diplomatic representatives. As
it contained no provision for a formal monopoly, the French proposal was supported
by countries with pharmaceutical industries, such as the USA, Switzerland, and
Germany (Silva 2013). The proposal envisaged using market forces to determine
the price of opium and allowing manufacturers to choose the supplier of their
preference (Collins 2015). The market-driven logic of the proposal helped it gain
the necessary political support to be approved. Signed in New York, the Protocol
for Limiting and Regulating the Cultivation of the Poppy Plant, the Production
of, International and Wholesale Trade in, and Use of Opium of 1953 established
new mechanisms for the regulation of the worldwide opium market.
The protocol established a system of estimates and statistics to facilitate
the control and monitoring of opium crops, harvests, consumption, exports,
and stocks — adapting instruments from the 1925 and 1931 conventions. The
protocol determined that only seven countries could grow poppy for export:
Bulgaria, Greece, India, Iran, Yugoslavia, Turkey, and the USSR. If the quantity of
opium exported to any one country were found to have exceeded the estimates
reported by that country, further exports to it were suspended for one year. As for
producing countries that were not on the list but that until 1959 had cultivated
poppies for export, these could request a transitional measure upon ratification
of the Protocol (UN 1953). This would enable them to continue exporting for
medical purposes, as long as they declared the market(s) to which they were
exporting (which could only be among the signatory countries). In addition,
the protocol established that, within five years of its entry into force, the use of
opium for quasi-medical purposes should be abolished.
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Both Afghanistan and other countries considered traditional producers were
not included in this group. The initial justification for this exclusion was the
fact that these countries did not attend the document approval conference to
demand that they be included. Nonetheless, this is an untenable justification,
since Bulgaria and the USSR were not present and yet were included in the list
of licensed countries, while Vietnam, present at the meeting, was excluded.
Afghanistan thus found itself in an increasingly problematic position vis-à-vis
the opium trade. Internationally, it was not identified as a traditional producer
of the drug and its domestic situation contributed to distrust in other countries
regarding its ability to maintain adequate control of opium poppy production
(Barfield 2010). Since the 1930s, Afghanistan has been trying to adapt to the new
international era of drug control. As the demand for modern medicines increased
and access to narcotics came under the control of international conventions,
Afghanistan chose to participate in the system under construction. In 1934 it
became a member of the League of Nations and ratified the Dangerous Drugs
Act. In 1937, it also ratified the 1931 Convention. Nonetheless, its participation
in the licit market became less and less viable because it had not ratified the
1912 Hague Convention and did not provide the statistics and estimates on its
opium production required by the 1931 Convention (Bradford 2019).
Afghanistan continued to insist, in the years following the 1953 convention,
to be that it be included in the group of traditional producing countries. However,
political resistance among its neighbors and, later, among the international
powers prevented the alteration of the status quo (Collins 2015; Bradford 2015;
Thorogood 2018). In 1955, Iran banned opium within its territory due to its
inability to exercise control over its production and increased consumption among
the Iranian population. The USA supported Iran in this with financial incentives.
The Iranian ban profoundly impacted the global and regional dynamics of opium:
in addition to impelling an increase in global opium prices, it encouraged opium
production outside of Iran, especially in neighboring Afghanistan.
Opium produced in Afghanistan began to meet the demands of illicit markets
in Iran and Pakistan. Iran, Pakistan, and India (all signatories of the 1953 Protocol)
worked together politically to prevent Afghanistan from entering the list of
producers, fearing that this would worsen opium abuse in their countries. Other
countries claimed that the international market was already established and that
there was no room for new producers. In other words, in addition to concerns
about the geopolitics of opium, there were economic concerns regarding sharing
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of a portion of the licit international market (UN 1953). As noted by McAllister
(2000), the 1953 Protocol did not offer many options to producer States that
were not licensed: their only choices were to sell on the illicit market or fight
for a share of the licit one. This situation persists today.
Afghanistan in the current international opium licensing model
The ratification of the Opium Protocol in 1955 did not put an end to the debate
on controlling and limiting opium production. In addition to efforts to simplify
the drug control regulatory framework (six treaties and three protocols by the
1960s), how such control would be carried out in practice was still in dispute.
While countries like the UK advocated moderately restrictive control, the US
worked towards establishing highly restrictive control, limiting production to as
few countries as possible. The domestic situation of each non-licensed producer
was unique, which prevented these producers from organizing themselves around
a common negotiating position. Turkey was opposed to limitation, but Iran and
Afghanistan took a pro-US stance. India emerged as a moderate among these
positions, particularly regarding control over synthetic opioids (Bradford 2015;
Silva 2013; Collins 2015).
The opium control mechanisms laid down by the 1961 UN Single Convention
on Narcotic Drugs, which superseded all previous drug conventions, were the
result of a dispute between the interests of the various actors involved in the
international opium economy during the preceding decade — although the US
position had a decisive weight. The convention incorporated and updated the
various international drug control parameters that had been created previously
in a single document (Pereira 2017). It maintained the authorization of use for
medical and scientific purposes, the obligation of signatory countries to report
annual estimates of opium quantities needed, statistics on supply and demand,
the import and export certification system, and the classification of substances
in staggered lists according to the potential for abuse and medical applications
of them. It excluded all traditional, religious, and recreational uses of the drug.
The opium poppy, cannabis, and coca become the foci of control as envisaged
by the convention (Pereira 2017).
The format of this control, which aimed to bring about a utopian future in
which opium poppy, cannabis and coca production were eliminated worldwide,
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imposed heavy costs on countries and communities supported by poppy cultivation.
This strategy was based on the view of developed countries that restricting
the production of raw materials would be the most efficient way to avoid non-
legitimate uses of drugs, i.e., uses for purposes other than medicine or science
(Bewley-Taylor and Jelsma 2012). Given the context in which the convention was
drawn up, plant-based drug-producing countries did not have enough strength
to assert their interests and were forced to accede to the logic of eradication,
believing that they could thereby obtain political dividends and foreign financial
resources.
In the case of opium-producing countries, the alternative, in the face of this
structural limitation, was to take advantage of existing disagreements between
developed countries to achieve the best possible outcome. Throughout the
entire process, views of the production of raw material for drug manufacture
were polarized between those who defended limiting the number of countries
authorized to produce and export opium (à la the 1953 Protocol), and those
who opposed them, considering such limitation a violation of the principle of
sovereignty (Bradford 2015). In the case of opium, the convention reached an
intermediate formulation that allowed for the approval of the text while retaining
the exclusion of Afghanistan.
The final document of the 1961 Convention (UN 1961) allows any country to
grow, produce and trade opium in a licit manner if it observes certain rules. To be
able to carry out this production, the State must have a national control agency
(Art. 25), the opium trade produced by the country must be a governmental
monopoly (Art. 23) and (fundamental for the control of the international opium
market), to avoid overproduction of the drug, any country that had not exported
opium before signing the convention and that wished to do so had to request
authorization from the INCB (for up to five tons) and an additional authorization
from ECOSOC (for higher amounts) (Art. 24). The decision on whether or not
to grant such authorization would be made according to the provisions of the
convention and the estimates of global opium demand established by the INCB.
Although the proposal for a monopoly on production was abandoned when
the 1961 text was ratified, countries that exported opium during the decade
preceding the Single Convention were automatically allowed to continue exporting
(Art. 24, para. 3). In respect of the privileges granted to countries considered
traditional producers, the 80/20 Rule, drawn up by ECOSOC in 1979, deserves
special mention. According to this rule, 80% of the opium imported by a country
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should be produced by one of the traditional producers, i.e., India and Turkey,
with the remaining 20% being imported from the other producer countries. The
US, the world’s largest licit opium importer, has incorporated this rule into its
domestic legislation (Jelsma 2005; Felbab-Brown 2020).
The Commentary on the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961 (1973)
points out the imprecision employed in determining which countries were
“traditional producers.” The 1961 Convention states that “[…] a Party that
during ten years immediately before 1 January 1961 exported opium which such
country produced may continue to export opium which it produces” (UN 1973,
294, authors’ emphasis). Countries falling into this classification are considered
traditional producers. According to the INCB, only India and Turkey (current
traditional producers) would be qualified to export, as the term ‘during’ refers
to countries that produced opium during the decade 1951-1961. This is not the
only possible interpretation, however. The term ‘during’ could also be understood
as referring to any country that had produced opium at any point during the
aforementioned decade. The authors of the Commentary claim that this was the
original meaning of the convention. Such an interpretation would allow some
10 countries, including Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Pakistan, to be framed as
traditional producers and therefore allowed to produce opium lawfully. This is
not what has happened, however.
Traditional producers and the licit market: what about Afghanistan?
Opium-producing countries that were not incorporated by the traditional
producers’ rule of the 1961 Convention had two alternatives: to continue growing
opium poppies and trading opium, becoming illegal producers, or claiming a
share in the licit opioid market by requesting authorization from the INCB and
ECOSOC. While, according to the Single Convention, entry into the legal opium
market was an option, the difficulties in gaining admission faced by countries
like Afghanistan suggested that the world’s licensed opium producers had already
been decided on a decade before the 1961 convention and that access to the
market would not be easily shared.
Raw opium produced in Afghanistan until the 1950s, although expensive,
was highly regarded by many American pharmaceutical companies, given its
high concentration of morphine. However, there was a perception that the
government had no control over the production and export process, which
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generated discomfort and concern about the growth of the illicit market inside and
outside the country. As it tried to respond to international demands for greater
control, Afghanistan imposed different types of bans on opium production in
1945, 1956 (Opium Act), and 1958 (in Badakhshan province). While the 1945
and 1956 bans were intended to help the government gain control over the
opium industry and ban consumption for non-medical purposes, the 1958 ban
ended up by banning opium production altogether (Bradford 2015). By doing
this, the government hoped to obtain recognition as a responsible country and
incorporation into any treaty that defines the countries authorized to produce
opium for the global market, such as the 1953 Protocol.
As part of the strategy to be added to the group of countries producing
opium for the licit market, Afghanistan opted for a prohibitionist posture, thus
drawing closer to the US and moving away from the Afghan reality. In the
Afghan government’s assessment, the costs of prohibitionist policies were lower,
in financial terms, than the benefits derived from the US-sanctioned share of
international trade. In the wake of this move, the Afghan government was advised
by the US to wait for ratification of its candidacy by the CND/ECOSOC before
resuming production. In the meantime, however, many producers began to seek
buyers for their opium on the international market, signaling that the ban had not
been effective (indeed, several pharmaceutical companies in the US and France
claimed to have received samples of Afghan opium at the time). The increase in
the flow of Afghan opium to illicit markets in neighboring countries — notably
Iran — made incorporation into the licensed system unfeasible.
Afghanistan’s absence from the 1953 Opium Protocol and the bans
implemented thereby were decisive for its subsequent exclusion from the list of
countries considered traditional producers. The bans of 1956 and 1958, which
interrupted the production of opium at two moments in the decade that preceded
the elaboration of the Single Convention, prevented Afghanistan from being able to
be considered a traditional producer, according to the interpretation of the INCB.
From 1960 onwards, the internal situation in Afghanistan began to deteriorate,
politically and economically. During the 1960s and 1970s, social reforms were
intensely disputed between the Soviet-oriented socialist movement and the
radical Islamic movement, a reflection of dissatisfaction with the liberal policies
that had been implemented since the 1950s (Marsden and Samman 2000). With
the seizure of power by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA)
in the Saur Revolution of 1978, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was
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proclaimed, Cold War neutrality was abandoned and modernizing, revolutionary
reforms were undertaken, mainly in rural areas (Barfield 2010; Visentini 2013).
The suppression of the opposition, the internal disputes of the PDPA, and the
unpopularity of the reforms led the USSR to invade in 1979.
With the Soviet invasion, the previously diffuse insurgency began to organize
itself around a jihad against the invaders. During the 1980s, Afghanistan was
gripped by the conflict between USSR-backed government forces and mujahideen,
supported by the US and Pakistan. It was precisely in this period that the opium
industry gained scale in the global illicit market. According to Cornell (2007),
opium production, which before the invasion amounted to less than 200 tons,
reached 1,000 tons. The incentives for the opium industry to prosper were
diverse. Added to the violence of the armed conflict were the opium bans in
Iran and Pakistan. Given the suspension of economic activities as a result of the
war, poppy cultivation became a viable alternative for the survival of the rural
population. Another relevant factor in the process of transforming the Afghan
opium industry into a global illicit industry was the CIA’s covert operations in
the country. The US provided the necessary protection for groups involved in
opium production and trafficking to expand their markets. Such complicity on
the part of the American agency allowed the resistance to raise funds to maintain
the conflict and thus increase the costs for the communists (Mercille 2013).
Although Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the socialist
regime held out until 1992, when the main Islamic organizations took over the
provinces of Herat, Kabul, and Kandahar. Between 1992 and 1996, Afghanistan
was the scene of a civil war between different groups that sought to control the
country. Again, amid chaos and violence, the opium industry grew: in 1994 it
is estimated to have produced over 3,400 tons (Cornell 2007; UNODC 2005).
The Taliban came to power in September 1996, ending the civil war. Aided by
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and, indirectly, by the US, the
regime adopted a strongly anti-Western stance. Until the 2000s, Afghan opium
production continued to expand. In 1998, the country became the largest illegal
opium producer in the world, and in 1999 it is estimated that over 4,500 tons
of opium were produced there (Cornell 2007; UNODC 2005). In the year 2000,
however, the Taliban imposed the biggest and most effective ban on opium to
date: in 2001 the UN Office on Drugs and Crime recorded production of a mere
185 tons (UNODC 2005). For Mansfield (2016a), this was the last Afghan effort
to obtain recognition of its political regime in the international community. The
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US invasion of Afghanistan in September 2001 quickly allowed opium production
to return to pre-ban levels. In 2002, production is estimated to have reached
3,400 tons (Cornell 2007; UNODC 2005).
Future prospects for opium regulation in Afghanistan
The process of transforming Afghanistan into the world’s largest illegal
opium producer is the result of domestic and international events. If the birth of
this illegal market is a consequence of the creation of international drug control
mechanisms, as described in the previous sections, the relevance of this illegal
production to the social, political, and economic dynamics of Afghanistan is the
result of more than four decades of violence and conflict. Not only because of
the incentives provided by war to increase drug production but also because of
the maintenance of the structural conditions that have allowed illicit economies
to flourish.
The Bonn Agreement, signed in December 2001 after NATO forces drove
the Taliban into Pakistan, created a façade of Western-style liberal democracy
and guaranteed adherence to the interests of the intervening powers while
establishing a provisional authority under the leadership of Hamid Karzai,
who was responsible for leading the drafting of a constitution and organizing
presidential and parliamentary elections in subsequent years (Nasser 2021). At
the same time, Security Sector Reform (SSR) was initiated, to enable Afghan
forces to maintain order and defeat any new Taliban insurgencies (Ayub, Kouvo,
and Wareham 2009).
However, the promise of a “new” Afghanistan failed. The reasons are varied,
but the fact that the occupation process by US forces did not consider the Afghan
reality played an important role. Furthermore, US rule was based on an ethnic
divide et impera approach characterized by support for certain local factions,
such as the Alliance of North. According to Goodhand and Mansfield (2010),
the Bonn Agreement was an elite pact that only benefited the political forces
that were on the “right side” in the War on Terror. The use of local forces in the
fight against the Taliban provided opportunities for many factional warlords to
impose demands on the government ministries that were under construction.
Added to this scenario of fragility, in 2006 the Taliban returned to Afghanistan and
resumed the armed struggle. The occupying forces blamed the recrudescence of
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the Taliban actions for the growth of opium production and trafficking since the
control over the illicit drug market provided the means to finance its insurgency.
The non-regulation of Afghan opium had made a booming market available to
non-State groups, thus creating and strengthening criminal actors. Furthermore, the
occupation forces were not concerned with addressing the structural vulnerabilities
that initially allowed the opium economy to flourish. There was no consistent
effort at economic reconstruction. The structuring of a productive base that
would allow for long-term sustainable development was not even tested. The
post-intervention process of “rebuilding” Afghanistan was largely financed by
international aid flows and the service sector, driven by the invasion itself. The
agricultural sector remained the most important economic activity in the country.
Among the crops cultivated in Afghanistan, the one with the highest value is
the opium poppy, corresponding to about 8-11% of GDP and directly employing
more than 190,000 individuals, whose involvement in opium production supplied
44% of their incomes (UNODC 2019; Sopko 2020).
Despite data that reveal the significance of opium for the Afghan population,
the occupation forces and the government they supported remained committed
to the eradication of poppy plantations and criminally penalizing individuals
involved in poppy cultivation. The objective was to smother the source of the
funds that allowed the Taliban to remain in the conflict. Therefore, the fight against
drugs was one of the pillars of the Security Sector Reform. With the help of the
United Kingdom, the Counter Narcotics Directorate (CND) was established in
the country. This body assumed responsibility for designing and implementing
anti-narcotic policies for Afghanistan — closely monitored by the International
Security Assistance Force established by the UN Security Council (Mansfield
2020). Despite these actions, Afghan opium production steadily increased (Coyne,
Hall, and Burns 2016). After the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, poppy
plantations spread to virtually every province in the country, which returned to
being the world’s largest opium producer, accounting in 2005 for 90% of all illicit
opium produced and more than 92% of heroin consumed worldwide (UNODC
2006). This led to a debate on alternative means for dealing with the issue.
The data presented annually by the UN reports since the beginning of the
occupation demonstrate the inefficiency of the anti-opium policies in place.
Eradication efforts constituted an important obstacle to the Karzai government
(2001 to 2014) gaining legitimacy among the Afghan population. Obviously, the
various social groups involved with the opium market tended to support forces
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that did not destroy their source of income, regardless of who they were (i.e.,
the Taliban, warlords, or others) (Goodhand and Mansfield 2010; Felbab-Brown
2010). In this context, debates on the issue paid special attention to proposals
to integrate Afghanistan into the legal opium market.
Currently, half of the world’s opium production is legally regulated by domestic
and international laws. Twenty-one countries are authorized to produce opium,
both for export and domestic use. Spain, Turkey, Australia, France, and Hungary
are the main opium exporters (INCB 2021). The others, such as China and the
United Kingdom, grow opium poppies to meet their domestic demand. There are
profound differences between the various types of production in various exporting
countries, which impacts their profits, productivity, and how they participate in
the legal international market. India and Turkey cultivate poppies in a traditional
way, with intensive labor, which implies high production costs reflected in the
final price. By contrast, Australia and Spain cultivate poppies in a mechanized
way and on a large scale, which allows for greater profits and, consequently,
greater investments in research and technology. The competitiveness of opium-
producing countries for export is directly related to how poppy alkaloids are
cultivated, harvested, and extracted (Mansfield 2001; Byrd and Mansfield 2014;
Transform… 2019).
In 2005, the Senlis Council (recently renamed “The International Council on
Security and Development”), an international think tank, launched a campaign
entitled “Poppies for Medicine,” followed by the document “Feasibility study on
opium licensing in Afghanistan.” The Senlis Council proposed the creation of a
system to regulate the cultivation of opium in Afghanistan to produce medicines,
such as morphine and codeine. The proposal, widely discussed at the time,
was supported by two case studies, India, and Turkey. This is because both
states were able to transition from small-scale illegal opium producers to a legal
license system in the 1970s, following the norms established by the 1961 Single
Convention on Narcotics and authorization for opium production for research
and medicinal use. The Senlis Council argued that this path had the potential to
break the cycle of violence imposed by the illicit opium market in the country,
providing a socio-economic alternative for the Afghan population that would
also bring benefits to the State itself (Senlis Council 2005). Some have called this
alternative “poppies for peace” and suggested that licensing opium production
was a precondition for any consistent initiative for a sustainable socio-political
reconstruction of Afghanistan (Ham 2007).
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A series of critical analyses of the Senlis Council study and related analyses
were published in the following years, claiming, for example, that it had overlooked
important and problematic lessons from the Turkish and Indian cases (Windle
2011). There was also an assessment that the study did not consider the fragility
of Afghan State institutions and their inability to supervise a legal opium market
within the parameters established by the 1961 convention and the INCB (Grare
2008). Others claimed that the document overestimated the ability of the Afghan
State to license opium to solve important socio-political problems in the country,
in addition to not considering problems that would be generated by licensing itself,
such as the ethnic and tribal tension resulting from the inevitable disproportionate
participation of different groups in the legal market (Felbab-Brown 2007). Most
commentators highlighted the complexity of Afghanistan’s domestic variables,
suggesting that these made any such proposal difficult, be it of a conjunctural
or structural nature. It is worth noting that the Afghan state itself did not show
any interest in following such a path. According to the Minister of Counter
Narcotics at the time, Habibullah Qaderi, “Afghanistan rejects calls to legalize
poppy cultivation in the country”, given that without security “there is no
guarantee that opium will not be smuggled out of the country to the illicit trade
in narcotics” (OCHA 2005).
In addition to these social and institutional difficulties for the viability of
an opium licensing enterprise, a criticism made by Greenfield, Paoli, Reuter
(2009) is particularly important, given that it expresses the structural logic of
the functioning of international drug controls and their impact on domestic drug
controls of countries such as Afghanistan. Greenfield, Paoli, Reuter (2009) claim
that licensing could not be put into practice because, among other things, there
would be no space in the global market to absorb Afghan opium production.
Basically, there would be no demand.
A 2017 report by The Lancet concluded that while the supply of opioid
drugs is substantial, their global distribution is extremely uneven. Poor people
in all parts of the world continue to live and die with virtually no pain relief.
The situation is worse in low-income countries with precarious access to health
care (Knaul et al. 2018). The INCB itself (2021) reinforces the “urgent need to
increase levels of consumption of analgesic opioids” in countries where inadequate
consumption is identified and calls for the involvement of governments, civil
society, the pharmaceutical industry, and international community toward this
objective.
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According to Kunnumpurath et al. (2018), recent data show that the
consumption of opioid drugs for pain relief is still very low in most regions.
Some reasons for this include a lack of training and awareness among health
professionals, in addition to fear of addiction. However, limited funds for the
acquisition of these drugs are a decisive factor. In fact, it is the market logic that
governs the international distribution of opioids, with the norms of international
drug control having little effect on the market. This is clear from the lack of
attention paid by the INCB to pharmaceutical corporations.
Such corporations have great autonomy and power in the functioning of the
opioid market, being guided, like other corporations, by the goals of maximizing
their profits and return on investments through the development of new and
more advanced drugs. The drug market is not self-regulated, and products are not
easily substituted at the consumer level. This means that large pharmaceutical
corporations have great freedom in determining the price of a drug. It is interesting
to note that the classification of certain analgesic drugs (morphine and codeine,
for example) by the WHO as ‘essential,’ ensures a permanent global demand that
is independent of price. Thus, given the lack of competitiveness in the market
in general, the level of profit that pharmaceutical companies wish to obtain is a
central factor in determining the price of a drug (Malerba and Orsenigo 2015).
In this regard, as stated by Felbab-Brown (2020), India and Turkey, which are
traditional opium producers and use less technological methods, were not excluded
from the global market by Australian, New Zealand, and French corporations
because of the ECOSOC 80/20 rule that is applied by the USA.
This is one of the main reasons that explain the shortage of opioid medicines
in most countries and their wide availability in countries like the USA and
Canada, where the amount available for the treatment of health conditions
associated with pain is literally thousands of times greater than that estimated
to be necessary (Knaul et al. 2018). For more than a decade, both countries have
experienced an enormous expansion in opioid use by their populations and,
consequently, high rates of overdose deaths. This situation is largely due to the
legal market itself, driven by a series of actions by pharmaceutical corporations
in conjunction with state health agencies since the 1990s (Pereira 2021a). But
the illicit opioid market in the region has also increased considerably, following
the trend of growth in the legal market.
In this context, Mexico has suffered the effects of the connection between the
licit and illicit opioid markets, assuming the role of a key illegal poppy producer.
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The social violence derived from the War on Drugs, which was already widespread
in the country, has increased even more in recent years. On a smaller scale,
Mexico expresses the same problematic logic as Afghanistan. And, just as in the
past, there are proposals to regulate Mexican opium production (Transform...
2019). However, unlike in Afghanistan, Mexican government exponents seem
to see such measures as possible and desirable (Gallegos 2016).
Almost fifteen years after the regulation proposal made by the Senlis Council
to Afghanistan, “Transform Drug Policy,” an organization dedicated to the
international debate on drug policy has resumed this debate but concerning
Mexico. Transform Drug Policy’s proposals suggest the need to rethink the
international drug control system, considering the particularities of each case
and the notion of “shared responsibility” for the transnational drug market,
involving the US and other countries. According to Transform Drug Policy (2019),
a proposal to transition from the illegal to the legal opium market demands a
broad program of social development. In other words, it must be linked to a
socially sustainable project and must not be seen as the solution to the illegal
consumption of opioids in the region. Even so, it could lead to a decrease in
violence linked to the opium illegal market in the country.
Criticisms of this proposal restate the previous ones that had already been
made vis-à-vis Afghanistan in the early 2000s. According to Felbab-Brown (2020),
licensing opium production requires solving problems related to law enforcement
in its broadest sense, strengthening the justice system and reducing impunity
and corruption. Only after that would it be possible to contemplate consistent
regulation. I.e., it would not be feasible to think about regulation without first
solving impunity in the context of prohibition.
Conclusion
The ban on Afghan opium has been a topic of international policy discussion
since its inception, as have recent debates about possible regulations that could
include the country in the legal market. Historically, the different international
control initiatives for opium have reflected the interests of the main States and
their pharmaceutical corporations. This is clear in the proposals of the 1953
Protocol and the institutional architecture of the 1961 Convention. In both cases,
the USA played a decisive role. The definitions established by the US helped
determine the dynamics of the current illegal market.
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The structure of the opium market favored countries with medical and
pharmaceutical industries and discriminated against those engaged in traditional
opium production. In other words, the international opium policy was based
on the logic of the market and not on a logic of development or reduction of
illegality, which would have required a means of the inclusion of such countries
as Afghanistan, responsible as they are for the largest share of the illegal market.
Criticisms of regulation of the Afghan opium market (and more recently the
Mexican one) restate the same arguments — primarily citing the weakness of the
Afghan state — that were used in the past to justify the structure of the current
market. Analysis suggests that any new proposal for the regulation of opium
must first emerge from the actors responsible for the structure of the current
opium market and be guided by an interest in reducing illegal dynamics and the
violence associated with them.
In addition to making countries responsible for policing their production, such
a proposal would require a rearrangement of the global economic earnings from
opium as well as differentiated international support that could guarantee that
legal production would not be held hostage by the invisible hand of the market.
The production and circulation of psychoactive drugs cannot be defined by the
interests of economic agents, given their characteristics. The huge illegal market
for Afghan opium illustrates this point. So too does the massive consumption of
opioids in North America that has harmed thousands of people in recent decades.
The contradictions in global opium production and consumption suggest the need
to reflect on international drug control from a new perspective. Afghanistan’s place
in the global opium market is now, as in the past, a major issue in international
drug control policy.
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