Afghanistan has been the world's leading illicit drug producer since 2001.
[1] Afghanistan's
opium poppy harvest produces more than 90% of illicit
heroin globally, and more than 95% of the European supply.
[2][3] More land is used for opium in Afghanistan than is used for
coca cultivation in Latin America. In 2007, 93% of the non-pharmaceutical-grade
opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan.
[4] This amounts to an export value of about US$4 billion, with a quarter being earned by opium farmers and the rest going to district officials, insurgents, warlords, and drug traffickers.
[5] In the seven years (1994–2000) prior to a
Taliban opium ban, the Afghan farmers' share of gross income from opium was divided among 200,000 families.
[6] As of 2017, opium production provides about 400,000 jobs in Afghanistan, more than the
Afghan National Security Forces.
[7] The opium trade spiked in 2006 after the Taliban lost control of local warlords. In addition to opium, Afghanistan is also the world's leading producer of
hashish.
[8][9]
...
Afghanistan first began producing opium in significant quantities in the mid-1950s, to supply its neighbor
Iran after poppy cultivation was banned there. Afghanistan and
Pakistan increased production and became major suppliers of opiates to Western Europe and North America in the mid-1970s, when political instability combined with a prolonged drought disrupted supplies from the
Golden Triangle.
[10]
Soviet period (1979–1989)
After a Soviet-backed left-wing government in Afghanistan failed to gain popular support, the Russians
decided to invade. A number of resistance leaders concentrated on increasing opium production in their regions to finance their operations, regardless of its
haram Islamic status, in particular
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Mullah
Nasim Akhundzada, and
Ismat Muslim. The production was doubled to 575 metric tons between 1982 and 1983.
[11][12] (At this time the United States was pursuing an "arms-length" supporting strategy of the Afghan freedom-fighters or
Mujahideen, the main purpose of which was to cripple the
Soviet Union slowly into
withdrawal through
attrition rather than effect a quick and decisive overthrow.) Hekmatyar, the leading recipient of aid from the CIA and Pakistan, developed at least six heroin refineries in
Koh-i-Sultan in southwestern Pakistan, while other warlords were content to sell raw opium. Nasim Akhundzada, who controlled the traditional poppy growing region of northern Helmand, issued quotas for opium production, which he was even rumoured to enforce with torture and extreme violence. To maximise control of trafficking, Nasim maintained an office in
Zahidan, Iran.
[13]
It was alleged by the Soviets that US
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents were helping smuggle opium out of Afghanistan, either into the West, in order to raise money for the
Afghan resistance, or into the Soviet Union, in order to weaken it through drug addiction. According to
Alfred McCoy, the CIA supported various Afghan drug lords, for instance
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar[14] and others such as
Haji Ayub Afridi.
Another factor was the eradication effort inside Pakistan (whose
Inter-Services Intelligence were coincidentally supporters of the
Mujahideen). The Pakistani government,
US Agency for International Development (USAID) and other groups were involved in attempting to eliminate poppy cultivation from certain areas of the
North-West Frontier Province (now
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) bordering Afghanistan. The opium industry shifted from Pakistan into Afghanistan during the 1980s.
[15][16]