strategies to counter opiate in Afghanistan - Groupe URD

1.
Introduction
For some years, Afghanistan has been at the heart of the production, processing and
commercialisation of opium and opiates. 92% of world production in 2009 came from
Afghanistan. Though poppies have been cultivated for several centuries in certain provinces of
the country, today’s opium poppy economy is a recent development, initially in the context of
the war economy following the Soviet invasion and as a coping strategy in the 1990s, then as the
main cash crop, with a considerable increase in the amount cultivated since 2001. These
activities have continued to be a key factor in the country’s civil war and the international
community has allocated considerable resources to counter opium production as a part of its
wider strategy against the armed opposition.
The object of this study is to analyse all the strategies which have been implemented over the
last decade to counter the Afghan opiate industry. These strategies concern the cycle of
production, commercialisation and use of opiates. They include awareness-raising, repression
(eradication of crops, seizure, legal action against different categories of actor, etc.) and the
implementation of alternative programmes (agriculture, but also, more generally, rural
development).
After a quick presentation of the methodology used and the constraints encountered in chapter
II, chapter III gives a general overview of the issue of opium in Afghanistan (level of production,
factors which influence levels of production and the National Drug Control Strategy). Chapter IV
focuses on the development-related strategies which have been put in place to counter the
production of opium poppies and then chapter V deals with the other actions taken to counter
opiate production. Finally, in chapter VI, the team’s conclusions are presented and a certain
number of recommendations are made.
Strategies to counter opiate production in Afghanistan
Groupe URD | Juin 2010
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