The failure of counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan
UK and international counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan have ultimately failed. That is the conclusion of our report, The UK and Afghanistan, published on 13 January 2021.
The Afghan drug economy is lucrative: it accounted for around 6–11% of GDP in 2017. It is a crucial part of Afghanistan’s power dynamics, with warlords, border officials, security forces, the police and the Taliban engaged in the trade. Erica Gaston, Global Public Policy Institute, Berlin, told us that many militias and warlords linked to the government have a stake in the opium trade. Dr Antonio De Lauri, Chr. Michelsen Institute, Bergen, said opium trafficking contributes approximately 65% of the Taliban’s income.
Opium poppies are a high-return cash crop, and many rural jobs and livelihoods in Afghanistan depend on their cultivation. We heard from the Drugs & (dis)order Research Project that poppies are cultivated in approximately a third of rural villages. Dr Saeed Parto, Afghan Public Policy Research Organization, said that in 2018 around 200,000 Afghans earned income from opium production. Dr Vanda Felbab-Brown, the Brookings Institution, noted that opium cultivation is labour intensive — five times more so than wheat — making it a major source of employment. Ultimately, reducing dependence on the drugs economy is a long-term development issue.
After the fall of the Taliban, the UK led efforts to eradicate opium cultivation. It expended significant resources seeking both to destroy crops and fund alternative livelihoods. The Government maintains that countering the trade in narcotics remains a priority for UK engagement in Afghanistan today. Baroness Goldie, Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, described narcotics as “a key threat to our national security interests”. Afghanistan is the source of 95% of heroin on UK streets, and there are 261,000 heroin users in England. In 2019 there were 1,329 deaths related to heroin or opium poisoning across the UK.
In considering the effectiveness of UK counter-narcotics work in Afghanistan, Lord Ahmad, Minister of State for South Asia, said the UK’s work “to disrupt serious and organised criminality … linked to the Afghan drugs trade” has achieved “considerable success”. However, we conclude that the UK’s presence in and funding for Afghanistan appears to contribute little to countering the narcotics trade. The problem is seemingly intractable in the context of ongoing conflict and insecurity, the dependence of millions of rural Afghans on opium poppies for their livelihoods, and the involvement of multiple powerful actors in the drug economy.
So what can be done? Dr. Felbab-Brown argued convincingly that international counter-narcotics policies should aim “to avoid making a very difficult situation in Afghanistan worse”. We conclude that effective action will only be possible once a greater degree of security is achieved in Afghanistan.
Peace talks are underway in Doha between the Afghan government and the Taliban. The UK Government should make clear to any government formed as a result of the peace process that it must commit to reducing and eliminating the drugs trade. This will involve commitments from both sides, given the widespread involvement of both militias and the Taliban in the trade. The UK should seek to assist any such counter-narcotics efforts. The UK will also need to work with Afghanistan’s neighbours, particularly Pakistan and Iran, in enforcement action against this illicit trade.
Read the report: House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee, The UK and Afghanistan
