War on terror worsens war on drugs
Opium production flourishes after defeat of Taliban

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The downfall of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and the rise of Northern 
Alliance forces have led to a resumption in opium cultivation in the 
country. The shift in control over the drug trade will alter trafficking 
patterns, bolstering the opium trade through Central Asia to Russia and 
increasing the quantity of heroin and morphine destined for Europe and the 
United States. 

Opium production is once again flourishing in Afghanistan following the 
defeat of the Taliban by the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance forces. In July 
2000 the Taliban outlawed the cultivation of poppy plants, from which opium 
is derived. The ban caused a 96 percent drop in opium production, from a 
peak of more than 1 million pounds in 1999 to 40,600 pounds in 2001, 
according to the U.N. Drug Control Program. 

But the change in who controls Afghanistan also means a shift in who 
controls the country's drug trade. The Northern Alliance is stepping up drug 
production in areas it holds, and recent reports indicate that planting of 
poppy seeds for next year's spring harvest has already begun. Trafficking 
patterns will also be altered, with more opium likely to transit through 
Central Asian states to Russia. This will boost the quantity of opium-based 
drugs, such as heroin and morphine, destined for Europe and the United States. 

The greater availability will lower prices for such narcotics, increasing 
usage in the West and quickly leading to more violence and crime. A surge in 
production will also prompt traffickers to seek more markets. Because the 
European market is well-established and easily saturated, drug traffickers 
and criminal syndicates such as the Russia mafia will try to expand their 
position in less-exploited markets such as the United States. 

Afghanistan is one of the world's single-largest producers of opium and 
accounted for nearly 40 percent of global production in the late 1990s, 
according to the CIA. Production under the Taliban occurred largely in 
southern and central Afghanistan. Most of the opium was produced in the 
Helmand, Kandahar, Oruzgan, Nangarhar and Badakhshan provinces, which are 
all now in the hands of anti-Taliban or Northern Alliance forces. 

Routes established through cooperation between the Taliban and traffickers 
in Pakistan and Iran resulted in the transiting of much of the country's 
opium through Iran, the Persian Gulf states, Turkey and the Balkans before 
reaching European markets. Over the past decade, another route from 
Afghanistan – aimed at tapping the American market – was established via 
East African countries such as Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda before reaching 
the United States. 

But with local warlords and chieftains associated with the Northern Alliance 
now in control of the major drug-producing regions, use of the 
Taliban-favored southern routes through Pakistan will take a hit while 
northern routes will see more drug trafficking. 

Northern Alliance warlords will want to reward their allies to the north by 
sending business their way, and this will heighten traffic through Central 
Asia directly to Russia. According to Russian intelligence officers quoted 
by the BBC, traffickers in Tajikistan receive narcotics from areas under the 
control of the Northern Alliance. They then pass the drugs to Russian border 
guards, who in turn transfer them by air to Russia. 

Organized criminal gangs in Tajikistan and other Central Asian states are 
thought to work closely with the Russian mafia. The enrichment of the mafia 
through a rise in Afghanistan's heroin trade will create a host of law 
enforcement problems for Moscow. 

A higher supply of opium products and lower purchase prices will create more 
addicts, rival gangs may turn to violence to resolve competition, and the 
corruption among government officials will skyrocket. Such impacts will not 
be felt only in Russia and the saturated European markets. The shift in 
trafficking patterns for Afghan drugs will also threaten law and order in 
the United States. 

Although heroin is available in America, it is not widely used, according to 
a report by the U.S. Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center. 
The quality and the quantity of heroin now coming into the United States 
both are low, making it expensive and more dangerous than other drugs such 
as cocaine. But the new trafficking patterns may change that. 

The Russian mafia is known to have well-established connections with 
organized crime throughout the world, including drug traffickers in the 
Balkans and South America. These connections have already helped bring 
Colombian cocaine to Russia in exchange for weapons and cash. Russian mafia 
connections with Colombian and Mexican drug cartels may now help bring 
Afghan heroin to the United States. 

There is ample evidence to suggest Russian organized crime has established 
working relationships with Colombian traffickers. The discovery in Bogota 
last year of a submarine carrying Russian documents and instruction manuals 
and capable of transporting huge amounts of cocaine undetected suggests the 
Russian mafia was involved in its construction. 

The United States is an attractive alternative market for heroin and 
morphine. It is wealthy and has more current and potential users who can 
fund their habits. And the opium-derived products now available on the U.S. 
market are for the most part lower-quality Mexican brown heroin rather than 
the purer white Afghan heroin. 

Transporting opium products from southwest Asia to the United States remains 
a logistical challenge. However, the attractiveness of the U.S. market will 
encourage some entrepreneurial traffickers to take the added risks. 
U.S. policy makers and drug-enforcement groups are already discussing ways 
to prevent a resurgence of Afghanistan's drug trade. U.S. counter-narcotics 
officials are hoping to make anti-drug measures – such as the planting of 
alternative crops – a precondition for any future Afghan government to 
receive humanitarian aid, according to
The Associated Press Worldstream Nov. 25. 

The United Nations is also gearing up to combat the problem. A delegation of 
U.N. anti-narcotics experts was recently sent to Afghanistan to monitor 
drug-trafficking patterns along the country's northern border with 
Tajikistan, Itar-Tass reported Nov. 23. 

The participation of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan's opium production 
creates a public relations nightmare for the United States, which backed the 
opposition forces in order to oust the Taliban. Washington will find it 
problematic to support leaders known to rely on the drug trade to fund 
military campaigns. 

A larger issue, however, is the impact that a resurgence in the cultivation 
and trafficking of Afghan heroin will have on the West's never-ending quest 
to combat the drug trade. The United States scored an important victory in 
its war against Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network with the collapse of the 
Taliban. By bringing an end to the harsh regime, Washington deprived 
al-Qaida of sanctuary. 

But it also removed the only prohibitions against opium cultivation in 
Afghanistan that reduced drug production. Washington may be winning the war 
on terrorism, but in doing so, it may have opened a new front in the war on 
drugs.