Should Opium Poppies be Legalised?

Illegal narcotic production has been named as Afghanistan’s number one problem, and the battle against poppy cultivation has consumed several years, many lives and hundreds of millions of dollars. Now an international organisation has proposed a radical solution: legalise poppy cultivation.



“More than two million people, or nine per cent of the population, rely on poppies for their livelihood,” said Emmanuel Reinert, executive director of the Senlis Council, a Paris-based drug policy advisory forum. “Without adequate measures to prevent illegal usage, eradication efforts will be useless.”



Instead of putting mammoth amounts of time and money into destroying the crop, argues Reinert, the international community should help Afghanistan become a legal opiate producer.



“Afghanistan and neighbouring countries need pain relief medication,” he said. “At present the country has to import such medications from abroad.”



According to a United Nations study released in 2004, almost 90 per cent of the world’s heroin originates in Afghanistan. In his inauguration speech, President Hamed Karzai declared a “jihad”, or holy war, on the poppy, and since then major efforts have gone into stamping out the plant.



But the efforts have been less than successful, say many. While land under cultivation has decreased by over 20 per cent in the last year, favourable climate conditions yielded a bumper crop, keeping production levels fairly steady. This year, according to some media reports, farmers are actually increasing the land under cultivation, convinced that the government will not destroy their crops.



The Senlis Council has worked on poppy legalisation in other countries such as Austria, India, Canada and Australia. Since September 2005, it has taken on the task of convincing the Afghan government, as well as international organisations, that legalising the crop is a good idea.



So far it has had limited success.



Sayed Azam, a spokesman for the Ministry of Counter-Narcotics, is sceptical that a legalisation scheme could work. “In the present situation, legalising poppy cultivation will never benefit Afghanistan. This is also a blow against the counter narcotics strategy,” he said.



According to Azam, Afghanistan does not have the capacity to ensure that poppies are grown and opium sold legally.



“In countries like Canada, Austria, India and Australia, the government can regulate the poppy crop,” he said. “It is very clear what percentage of the crop is legal, and the government can prevent the sale of illegal poppies to smugglers. This capacity does not exist in Afghanistan.”



General Mohammad Daud, deputy interior minister for counter-narcotics, is equally adamant that such legalisation is not in the country’s best interests.



“The Senlis proposal is unacceptable and is against the interests of Afghanistan as a whole,” he told IWPR. “Our police and security forces are not able to control the cultivation of licensed poppy. The government of Afghanistan cannot accept this idea, because it does not have the necessary capacity.”



Others, however, say the idea is worth considering. Lal Gul, head of the Afghan Commission for Human Rights, sees a clear benefit in the proposal.



“Legalisation means we take poppies off the black market,” he told IWPR. “We are never going to be able to stop the cultivation of poppies in Afghanistan. Trying to do so just deals a deathblow to Afghan farmers. Legalisation is a good option.”



But political analyst Karim Khuram said that giving licenses to poppy farmers would just give corrupt government officials another opportunity to exercise control over the process. “Corruption is rampant in the government,” he said. “Licenses will be given only to those farmers who have ties to government officials.”



Since some government officials are involved in the drug smuggling process, he said, it likely that some of the opium will be siphoned off to produce heroin.



There have been numerous reports in the media recently that government officials are engaged in the illegal narcotics trade, making many wonder whether any form of control is possible.



“If poppy were legalised, the government would not be able to control even Kabul,” said Khuram. “In places like Badakhshan or Helmand, it is out of the question.”



Licensing poppy-growing will just perpetuate the system of corruption that already exists within the country, agreed political analyst and member of the Academy of Sciences, Habibullah Rafi.



“In Afghanistan, privileges are awarded or revoked based on ethnic, tribal or linguistic relationships,” he said. “Licenses will be given to those with closer ties to the government.”



Control is at the heart of the debate over legalisation. Even those who agree in principle with the idea are wary of beginning the effort before adequate safeguards are in place.



“We must proceed step by step,” said political analyst Fazel Rahman Oria. “Illegal cultivation has made smugglers rich and provided funds for terrorists. It has resulted in the deaths of human beings, and it has perpetuated corruption in the government. Legalisation is a good idea, but it must be controlled by the world community as well as by the Afghan government.”



Doris Buddenberg, head of the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, UNODC, told IWPR that legalisation could be beneficial for Afghanistan, provided the government can prevent smuggling and illegal cultivation.



"It is not yet proven that Afghanistan has this capability,” she said.



And there is an economic side to the question as well.



According to Buddenberg, one kilo of legal opium for medicinal use costs 20 to 30 US dollars on world markets, while illegal opium used in producing heroin costs 150 dollars.



“In a country like Afghanistan, farmers will not want to stop dealing with smugglers, since they make more money. So it will be impossible to prevent illegal cultivation and smuggling,” said Buddenberg.



Some Afghan farmers are convinced that legalisation will solve their problems.



“Planting poppy is a gamble for me,” said Janat Gul, a farmer in Balkh province. “I am never sure whether or not the government is going to destroy my crop. But if poppy cultivation is legalised, then I will have peace of mind. I would not sell my crop to smugglers if the government did this favour for me.”



Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi is an IWPR staff reporter in Mazar-e-Sharif. Abdul Baseer Saeed is a freelance reporter in Kabul.