Without Curbing the Opium Trade, Afghanistan Is Unlikely to See Peace

May 31, 2019 | Saqib Fikree
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While the talks between the United States and the Taliban continue, one key factor contributing to Afghanistan’s instability is not discussed — opium cultivation and drug trafficking. Afghanistan is the top producer of opium in the world, generating more than 90% of the world’s supply. Opium not only funds the Taliban and other terrorist groups, but it has also led to a “silent tsunami” of addiction across the country.

Afghanistan emerged as a significant opium producer in the mid-1950s, after neighboring Iran made its production illegal. However, it was in the mid-1970s, when political instability and a prolonged drought disrupted the flow of drugs from Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle, that Afghanistan and Pakistan began to supply large quantities of opiates to Europe and North America. The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and the conflict that followed, boosted the cultivation of opium amid instability and the breakdown of the rule of law.

Attempts by the Afghan government and the international community to upend the Taliban’s influence and to create a viable legal economy have been consistently undermined by the illicit cash generated by the opium trade, which has unbalanced the country’s economy. The export value of Afghan opium was between $4.1 billion to $6.6 billion in 2017, with a quarter being earned by opium farmers, and the rest going to the Taliban, government officials, warlords and drug traffickers. The size of the opium economy far exceeded the value of Afghanistan’s exports of legal goods and services in 2016.