Opium: Friend or Foe?
The latest UN Report says illegal opium production has dropped 19 percent in Afghanistan over the last year. This is good news since the UN Office on Drugs and Crime says growing poppies to make heroin and other illegal drugs has been financing the Taliban and other insurgent groups. Nearly all of Afghan poppies are grown in provinces where the Taliban are strongest.
Yet a drop in poppy production is bad news for Afghan farmers using the cash crop as a means to survive. Although the Afghan government has tried to persuade farmers not to plant poppies, growing legal crops such as wheat is simply not as lucrative. The UN’s World Food Program estimates that the average Afghan family will spend 85 percent of their income on food compared with 50 percent last year due to rising costs.
What's more, further reduction of the poppy crop may not reap the benefits Western authorities have in mind. Cutting opium production to cut off terrorist financing could in fact backfire. The UN report says that the Taliban and other insurgent groups are “holding secret stocks of opium in an effort to drive up world prices” and may profit from increased prices caused by a decrease in supply. And increased prices for poppies could affect the costs for legal drugs such as codeine and morphine.
Would legalizing the crop help Afghan farmers — and take away the terrorists' black-market advantage?
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