Afghan drug production could boom
Afghanistan has perfect conditions for the production not just of opium, but also methamphetamine
The US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August and the subsequent return to power of the Taliban has raised concerns in the West, Russia and India about increased drug-funded terrorism and a global flood of cheap heroin. Anti-drugs rhetoric from senior Taliban figures is intended to allay such concerns, but a sustainable anti-opium strategy would be difficult and destabilising for the Taliban to implement.
What next
Alongside opium poppy, cultivation of ephedra (for methamphetamine manufacture) will maintain an upward trajectory as households seek to insulate themselves from economic difficulties. Without increased access to international financial support, Afghan dependence on the illicit sector for livelihood will increase. A repressive response from Taliban commanders to regional drug economies would alienate supporters in heartlands such as Kandahar and Helmand, and risk exacerbating humanitarian crises.
Subsidiary Impacts
- The surge in opium prices, noted after the Taliban announced a possible ban, will probably prove fleeting.
- Methamphetamine production will increase, but is unlikely to displace opium/heroin as Afghanistan’s main illicit export.
- Climate change will exacerbate drought risks, increasing farmers’ preference for opium over less resilient crops, such as wheat.
Analysis
The US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan reported that, between 2002 and 2017, the United States spent USD8.6bn on counter-narcotics efforts there.
Over that period:
- estimated opium poppy cultivation more than quadrupled to 328,000 hectares;
- opium production increased to 9,000 tonnes, from 3,200, making Afghanistan responsible for an estimated 85% of global production;
- opium cultivation became concentrated in southern and western provinces (Kandahar, Uruzgan, Farah and Helmand) -- areas where government control was weak and Taliban activity high; and
- morphine and heroin manufacture from Afghan opium, traditionally undertaken in Pakistan and Turkey, relocated to Afghanistan.
Both donors and the Afghan government acknowledged that the opium economy supported vulnerable livelihoods. A UN survey on the impact of a 2001 poppy ban enforced by the Taliban, reported a severe loss of income for 3.3 million people.
Although taxes on opium production, heroin labs and trafficking have contributed to Taliban revenues throughout the post-2000 insurgency, NATO-led forces scaled down aggressive eradication strategies in latter years, to avoid alienating rural communities. US air attacks in 2018-19 targeted heroin manufacturing facilities rather than poppy crops (see AFGHANISTAN: US opium raids unlikely to weaken Taliban - May 15, 2018).
Development opportunity lost
From 2002, the United States, and other major donors such as the United Kingdom, which funded the Afghan National Drug Control Strategy, addressed the opium economy through a twofold strategy of supporting alternative livelihoods (AL) and strengthening law-enforcement capacity.
Foreign-led efforts to reduce Afghan opium production have failed
The failure of these programmes to reduce poppy cultivation, and their contribution to a quadrupling of the volume of the illicit opiate sector, have been linked to several factors, including:
- inadequate and unpredictable funding for AL programmes, which reduced the confidence of cultivators in poppy eradication campaigns and formal economic opportunities;
- a tendency to distribute AL support to famers with collateral (such as land), which deepened rural inequalities and drove landless peasants into deep-well irrigation and cultivation of desert areas in Nimroz province's Khash Rud, Bakwa in Farah province (both in western Afghanistan), and north Helmand;
- the prioritisation of security over development in operational decisions and funding streams, and ongoing insecurity in cultivation zones; and
- the primacy placed by Kabul and donors on stabilising control in regional provinces.
The latter issue led to compromises with actors at senior levels in opiate trafficking networks, and fuelled corruption in the distribution of development funding.
Taliban drug revenues
At the first Taliban conference after the fall of Kabul in August, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid emphasised that the Taliban would not permit continued opiate production.
That position has been met with scepticism, particularly in the United States, amid claims that the Taliban receives up to 60% of its income (some USD400mn annually) from the opium economy. That figure is disputed, but the Taliban's control of the state, economy and borders has elevated concerns that drug trafficking will increase, and that the Taliban will rely on opium revenues to substitute suspended donor assistance.
Whatever the exact figures, the taxation of opiates is a lucrative income stream that the Taliban will be reluctant to abandon. In some areas, ephedrine and methamphetamine production have also become valuable sources of tax revenues. This is particularly true of western regions, which process (rather than grow) ephedra in locations with convenient transport links to Iran
Methamphetamine challenges
The ephedra plant has long grown in mountainous areas of central Afghanistan where it has traditionally been burnt for fuel.
Afghan ephedra markets began changing in 2016 as traders from southwestern border regions began buying crops and selling the plant at markets in Farah and Nimroz on the Iranian border.
Market shift is thought to be related to a shortage of methamphetamine in Iran and efforts by Afghan traders to drive down costs by relying on plant-based rather than synthetic ephedrine inputs, extracted from decongestant medicines.
Over the last five years, the low-skilled roles of ephedrine extraction from the ephedra plant, and the more specialised task of 'cooking' methamphetamine from ephedrine, have generated a cottage industry in border areas.
The emergence of Bakwa and Khash Rud as hubs for methamphetamine and heroin manufacture and export reflects the changing dynamics of Afghan drug markets and has been linked largely to a lack of alternative employment opportunities and central government neglect of these areas.
Nimroz received just USD18mn in funding transfers in 2019. By comparison, the estimated 148 ephedrine labs detected in Khash Rud in 2021 have a potential methamphetamine manufacture capacity of 351.6 tonnes, which is worth USD132mn at domestic wholesale prices.
The ease of trade with Iran through crossing points such as Zaranj, in Nimroz, particularly since the decision of former President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani to reduce trade dependence on Pakistan through closer trade ties with Iran and India, has also been a contributing factor.
A global competitor
Over recent years, methamphetamine markets, traditionally focused regionally in different parts of the world, have become increasingly competitive and internationalised. These are developments that Afghan producers are well placed to exploit.
Established meth manufacturers in countries such as Mexico, Myanmar and the Czech Republic tend to use synthetic ephedrine, pseudoephedrine and benzyl methyl ketone in methamphetamine production. This is mainly diverted from the pharmaceuticals sector or chemical suppliers in India and China.
Afghanistan can produce methamphetamine cheaply
By contrast, Afghan methamphetamine, manufactured from the ephedra plant, does not rely on expensive imported chemical precursors, and requires less technical skill to process.
This allows for a wholesale price of around USD280 per kilogram, compared with USD3,000 per kilogram in Myanmar and the Czech Republic. The wholesale price of methamphetamine in Australia ranges from USD90,000 to USD130,000 per kilogram and rose to USD200,000 during the 2020 lockdown.
Outlook
Afghanistan's economic challenges, relative diplomatic isolation and perfect conditions for successful heroin and methamphetamine production make any reduction in the output of either drug unlikely.
International efforts to press the Taliban on opium would risk a humanitarian crisis, and any reduction in cultivation would be unsustainable without the provision of alternative income and employment opportunities.
Meanwhile, withholding financial assistance to a country dependent on foreign funding for 75% of its national budget would drive reliance on the informal drugs economy and boost lucrative methamphetamine exports at a time of high global demand.
