Afghanistan is Still a Mess
I'm trying to catch up on some drug war news from during my hiatus, and to no one's surprise, the situation in Afghanistan hasn't changed in any meaningful way. Reading through this Boston Globe article by Paul Fishstein, I'm reminded of how hard it is to really get to the bottom of the opium issue. Fishstein looks at the eagerness from the United States to do aerial eradication and the proposal from the Senlis Council to enter into a licensing scheme to allow for legally produced poppy crops and ends up seeing them each as two counterproductive extremes where the real answer is somewhere in the middle. There are two problems with this. One, it assumes that you can fix the problem in Afghanistan only by focusing solely on what is happening in Afghanistan. And two, it assumes that corruption is a cultural problem rather than a circumstantial one.
Where Fishstein is correct is that Afghanistan is likely not developed enough as a nation to do what Turkey did in the 1970s, when licensing the opium farming in that country moved the illicit production to other parts of the world (mainly Afghanistan). But even today, Turkey still plays a role in the opium trade, mainly as a major conduit for illegal drugs to enter Europe. But we don't think of Turkey as a narco-state and they don't suffer terribly much from having that trade, even though they are just as integral in the overall process that starts with poppy plants in Helmand Province and ends with illicit sales on the streets of Europe's major cities. We focus on the poppies in Afghanistan because they're visible and they appear to be the one tangible thing that we can "attack" in order to stop the whole process. Unfortunately, this approach has been shown time and time again not to work.
For example, think of it in terms of human health. Let's say that one day you discover you have these tumors growing in your body. There's a toxic waste dump a mile down the road and every doctor you've seen has said that the tumors are caused by radiation and that you need to get rid of them or else you'll die. You decide to deal with this problem by trying to smash all the tumors with a hammer because, well, that feels like the right thing to do. This is essentially what we're doing in Afghanistan. We're doing something only because we like using hammers and it just seems like it will work.
So later, your doctor comes by again and tells you that using a hammer to get rid of the tumors isn't just stupid but also counterproductive because it just wears down your immune system and causes new tumors to form even faster. He has special treatments that will get rid of the tumors, but they can't prevent new ones from forming, so as long as you're near the toxic waste dump, you'll keep getting new ones. This is essentially the problem with legalization in Afghanistan. Even if you legalize some of the production, there's enough lawlessness in Afghanistan that illegal production will still happen there unless you deal with the root cause of this problem - the demand from addicts.
But Fishstein sees the two approaches of aerial eradication and legalization as being equally bad rather than seeing one as tremendously counterproductive and the other as being inconsequential, at worst. Eradication is actively making the Taliban stronger while also alienating farmers who would strongly support a legal alternative (the Taliban don't make money directly from the poppies, they make their money from providing protection against those who are trying to stop the trade). Legalization would do little more than buy allegiance from farmers who would otherwise hate us. But nothing will ever be "cured" until the demand from addicts in Europe and elsewhere is eliminated.
It's a fair criticism that the Senlis Council may be overselling what their legalization proposals can do. But Fishstein is far more off-base when he defends the claims of those who defend spraying:
The criticism over the price of opium is even more curious. If the Senlis Council's legalization scheme is implemented and is wildly successful, that would certainly bid up the price of illicit opium to make up for the market shortage. But the same exact thing would happen in an eradication plan that was wildly successful. And that's the whole point. The market forces that drive this problem will always compensate. But in the legalization plan, the farmers aren't starving to death.
And despite what Fishstein claims, the legalizers do have an answer for the last question. Farmers are already expanding production into new areas, even though it's illegal. The legality of the poppy plant has no bearing on how much of it is grown illegally in Afghanistan. The only factors that effect it are the demand from addicts and the amount of money that can be wasted in order to move the production to another part of the world.
The recent strategies being discussed over how to deal with the opium problem tend to fall in line with Fishstein's thinking - that legalization and aerial spraying are two extreme ideas that will both lead to greater misery. But that ignores the fact that destroying poppy crops is simply not the correct solution to the problem of heroin addiction in the first place. And in an environment where our enemies benefit financially (and militarily) from our boneheadedness, it's more than just an inconsequential failure.
Controlling the supplies, regulating prescription and non-prescription sales in a tightly controlled environment, and establishing safe sites for addicts is the correct way for the first world to deal with the problem of heroin addiction. But the failed model of trying to cut off the supplies at the source continues to be the sole justification for what we do in Afghanistan. And it makes no more sense than smashing tumors with a hammer.
Where Fishstein is correct is that Afghanistan is likely not developed enough as a nation to do what Turkey did in the 1970s, when licensing the opium farming in that country moved the illicit production to other parts of the world (mainly Afghanistan). But even today, Turkey still plays a role in the opium trade, mainly as a major conduit for illegal drugs to enter Europe. But we don't think of Turkey as a narco-state and they don't suffer terribly much from having that trade, even though they are just as integral in the overall process that starts with poppy plants in Helmand Province and ends with illicit sales on the streets of Europe's major cities. We focus on the poppies in Afghanistan because they're visible and they appear to be the one tangible thing that we can "attack" in order to stop the whole process. Unfortunately, this approach has been shown time and time again not to work.
For example, think of it in terms of human health. Let's say that one day you discover you have these tumors growing in your body. There's a toxic waste dump a mile down the road and every doctor you've seen has said that the tumors are caused by radiation and that you need to get rid of them or else you'll die. You decide to deal with this problem by trying to smash all the tumors with a hammer because, well, that feels like the right thing to do. This is essentially what we're doing in Afghanistan. We're doing something only because we like using hammers and it just seems like it will work.
So later, your doctor comes by again and tells you that using a hammer to get rid of the tumors isn't just stupid but also counterproductive because it just wears down your immune system and causes new tumors to form even faster. He has special treatments that will get rid of the tumors, but they can't prevent new ones from forming, so as long as you're near the toxic waste dump, you'll keep getting new ones. This is essentially the problem with legalization in Afghanistan. Even if you legalize some of the production, there's enough lawlessness in Afghanistan that illegal production will still happen there unless you deal with the root cause of this problem - the demand from addicts.
But Fishstein sees the two approaches of aerial eradication and legalization as being equally bad rather than seeing one as tremendously counterproductive and the other as being inconsequential, at worst. Eradication is actively making the Taliban stronger while also alienating farmers who would strongly support a legal alternative (the Taliban don't make money directly from the poppies, they make their money from providing protection against those who are trying to stop the trade). Legalization would do little more than buy allegiance from farmers who would otherwise hate us. But nothing will ever be "cured" until the demand from addicts in Europe and elsewhere is eliminated.
It's a fair criticism that the Senlis Council may be overselling what their legalization proposals can do. But Fishstein is far more off-base when he defends the claims of those who defend spraying:
Yet, the sprayers are also correct: In a country where legal institutions are often incapable even of keeping accused drug suspects in jail and where drugs are said to travel in the convoys of high officials, legalization will blur the lines between legal and illegal opium, provide new opportunities for corruption, and bid up the price of illicit opium - providing even stronger incentives for production. The legalizers have still not been able to answer the most basic question: If the opium poppy that is currently grown on 3 percent of Afghanistan's agricultural land is made legal, why wouldn't farmers expand production onto other areas?The first criticism doesn't even make sense. If drugs are travelling in the convoys of high officials, then the line between legal and illegal opium is already blurred. Second, I don't really see how this provides new opportunities for corruption unless you're talking about diversion from legal growing, which already happens in places like India, but we're not demanding that India end its legal growing.
The criticism over the price of opium is even more curious. If the Senlis Council's legalization scheme is implemented and is wildly successful, that would certainly bid up the price of illicit opium to make up for the market shortage. But the same exact thing would happen in an eradication plan that was wildly successful. And that's the whole point. The market forces that drive this problem will always compensate. But in the legalization plan, the farmers aren't starving to death.
And despite what Fishstein claims, the legalizers do have an answer for the last question. Farmers are already expanding production into new areas, even though it's illegal. The legality of the poppy plant has no bearing on how much of it is grown illegally in Afghanistan. The only factors that effect it are the demand from addicts and the amount of money that can be wasted in order to move the production to another part of the world.
The recent strategies being discussed over how to deal with the opium problem tend to fall in line with Fishstein's thinking - that legalization and aerial spraying are two extreme ideas that will both lead to greater misery. But that ignores the fact that destroying poppy crops is simply not the correct solution to the problem of heroin addiction in the first place. And in an environment where our enemies benefit financially (and militarily) from our boneheadedness, it's more than just an inconsequential failure.
Controlling the supplies, regulating prescription and non-prescription sales in a tightly controlled environment, and establishing safe sites for addicts is the correct way for the first world to deal with the problem of heroin addiction. But the failed model of trying to cut off the supplies at the source continues to be the sole justification for what we do in Afghanistan. And it makes no more sense than smashing tumors with a hammer.
posted by thehim at 5:02 PM
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