How High is My Valley

“After 10 years of US-led war in Afghanistan, the country remains the world’s leading opium supplier, responsible for 90 percent of the global supply, according to the United Nations… The latest Afghanistan Opium Survey by the UN Office of Drugs and Crime found that opium cultivation rose by 7 percent in 2011 compared with [2010]. Opium production also climbed 61 percent [in 2011].” Christian Science Monitor, October 11^th. Opium is the narcotic that produces morphine and heroin, and beautiful fields of waving opium poppies provide gorgeous vistas of this dangerous crop throughout Afghanistan, but the heart of the trade begins particularly in the Helmand River Valley, which provides the right climate and rich soil where poppies thrive. 40% of the world’s opium comes from Helmand alone.

When U.S. forces first rode into the countryside, they were acutely aware of the reliance of the local farmers on this lucrative crop: “After the ousting of the Taliban from the town of Marja in the Southern Afghan province Helmand by Operation Moshtarak, American and NATO commanders were confronted with the dilemma of, on the one hand, the need to ‘win the hearts and minds’ of the local population and, on the other, the need to eradicate poppy fields and destroy the opium economy that allegedly financed the Taliban insurgency. It has been speculated that US Marines were ordered to ignore preliminarily the crops to avoid trampling the local farmers’ livelihood, and that this might have been because there were no significant poppy fields there before the first US forces arrived.” Wikipedia.

When the U.S. did intervene, the consequences to the locals were often well-beyond merely economic. Taliban typically advanced serious money for the locals to grow poppies, and if Afghan and U.S. DEA agents razed the crop, the Taliban extracted revenge by kidnapping (occasionally executing and torturing) the farmers’ kids until either the money was repaid or the crop delivered. Hearts and minds were clearly elusive.

However, that American laissez-faire attitude was destined to change: “Beginning four years ago, a huge military offensive, first by British troops and then by United States Marines, broke the Taliban’s hold on much of the [Helmand] valley. At the same time, there was an all-out effort to educate farmers and encourage them to grow other crops, with the aim of cutting poppy production. The provincial governor reinforced this initiative with a tough eradication program in the land along the river... Today, most farmers in this district, [in areas like] Nad Ali, as well as in nearby Marja and other settlements along the river, grow wheat and cotton. The district governor just opened a school in this remote village, and there is a small bazaar with a handful of mud-walled shops doing a steady business in gum, candy and toiletries. Patrols by NATO troops, the Afghan Army and the police are frequent.” New York Times, January 1^st.

We got poppy production under control? Well, not exactly, if you reread the first sentence of this blog. While the Helmand River Valley was restricted, it seems that enterprising farmers and Taliban in search of funding for their nefarious activities could not resist the growing market and increasing street prices for this illicit narcotic: “Beyond the fertile river lands, however, a more troubling pattern is emerging. According to interviews with farmers, elders and Afghan and Western officials, the poor sharecroppers who used to farm poppy here have moved to the outer reaches of the district, turning the desert into remarkably productive opium fields. The Taliban have moved as well, evading the NATO offensive and offering the poppy farmers protection.

“Over just a couple of seasons, these relocated farmers, unhampered by any military presence, have undercut the offensive’s initial gains against poppy production for this district. This, in turn, has raised hard questions about what will happen in villages like this one once the International Security Assistance Forces begin withdrawing.” NY Times. To stem this horrific tide, we would need hundreds of thousands of additional troops, stationed in Afghanistan indefinitely until a comparably lucrative economic activity were able to replace the profitability of growing and processing opium. It would be at least a trillion dollar effort beyond what we have committed to date.

Consumer demand for hard narcotics in the United States continues unabated, perhaps even increasing as a depressing economy makes escape through drug use seem even more attractive to many. We’ve turned our southern US border into a porous sieve through which automatic and semi-automatic weapons easily-purchased in the United States flood into Mexico to enable the drug cartels to insure the ability to move cocaine and marijuana back across the border into the U.S. Even North Korea partakes of the drug trade, using precious agricultural land – needed to feed a starving population – to generate hard currency by trading in locally-grown drug crops.

Absolutely nothing we are doing against illicit narcotics is working. With half of all incarcerated prisoners in the U.S. serving time related to drugs (and half of those for directly dealing in the narcotics trade), clearly, we have made trafficking one of the most lucrative endeavors in a world otherwise plagued with economic contraction. By simply making such drugs illegal, placing massive numbers of police officers in the field dedicated to the eradication of drugs (from local cops to the federal Drug Enforcement Agency), we have managed to drive the street price up, thus justifying the risks in the eyes of those who cannot resist the seeming limitless cash that can be generated in this toxic trade. It’s a vicious circle we have been unable to break.

So until we get demand in this country under control, the ability to restrict this international menace is an impossible goal. Our bailing bucket has a massive hole in it. There is a growing cry to legalize these noxious substances, tax them to the benefit of the state, and remove the pricing motivation that fuels drug lords all over the earth: “Former Mexican President Vicente Fox made a passionate and powerful call for an end to the war on drugs and called on the United States to legalize drugs to help reduce the violence in Mexico in an [October] interview with BBC TV... Fox is critical of current Mexican President Calderon and the U.S. government's counterproductive ‘drug control’ strategy -- and says they are responsible for the 50,000 prohibition-related deaths in Mexico in just the last five years.

“Fox explains that the United States should learn from the history of alcohol prohibition and that the answer to today's violence is to legalize drugs and treat them as a health issue, rather than a criminal issue.” Huffington Post, October 21^st. Americans should deal with the fact that nothing they are doing, nothing that they have been doing for decades – from Afghanistan to Mexico to enforcement efforts here in the United States – is having the slightest impact on the overall drug trade in the U.S. It’s time to deal with the problem with a pragmatic eye, and to stop believing that decades of failed policies are suddenly going to produce a miraculous solution to the narcotics trade. Legalization, taxation and government control over distribution would seem obvious at this point.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I remember one definition of insanity that includes the notion of repeating the same behavior and expecting a different result.