The Opium Trade in Afghanistan

1. http://www.havocscope.com/data/tag/afghanistan/

2. http://www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2008/vol1/html/100779.htm

3. http://www.havocscope.com/regions/asia/afghanistan.htm

(the second source references an Article from the International Herald Tribute; which is not currently available online)

The State Department report that the Afghan drug trade is "undercutting efforts to establish a stable democracy with a licit economic free market in the country". Take for example the opium trade: The opium trade seems well and alive in Afghanistan. The UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime,) claims that it "exports 90 percent of the world's poppy crop" (source 2). It also hints an increase in poppy cultivation after the fall of the Taliban. For example, the amount of opium grown in 2007 almost doubles the amount grown in 2005. (source 2)

One policy attempt to handle the opium situations is advocated by Gulab Mangal. He is attempting to combat the marketing of opium by encouraging the farmers to not plant the poppy seed. This is deemed a better policy than previous policies which were enforced after the production of poppy seeds. The governor blames this policy for causing increased poverty. (source 2)

I make the same observation that other fellow bloggers have made regarding the rise of prostitution in Iraq after the fall of the Saddam; in that case, as well as this, some standards of law have been further compromised after the fall of a regime. These two cases hint of what can happen as a result of the vacuum created after the loss of a ruling system. While the fallen regimes were deemed as the cause of much corruption (hence why the American government supported their fall), they also suppress other forms of corruption.

Despite the previous Iraqi and Afghani regimes having serious faults, it is interesting that a compromised situation (lawlessness) can be exacerbated after removing faulty governments (that are often viewed as the source). If the U.S. would like to continue manipulating government structures in other countries, this example is yet another hint that managing the power vacuum after the coup is also a crucial task to establishing stability.