Afghanistan in Transition Re-Assessing Counter Narcotic Strategy: External Lessons and Implications

Abstract

The consistent abundance of opium cultivation, production, trafficking, and most detrimental the consumption of opium and opium generated drugs substantially undermine the post-2001 rebuilding efforts of the Government of Afghanistan (GOA) and International Community. In the context of a feeble security situation and hereditary fragile local conditions, this thesis examines and re-assesses the current Afghanistan counter narcotic strategy in order to analyze its implications for long-term sustainable development and security. The intent of the research is to determine whether counter narcotic policies, both in theory and practice, are aligned with the goal of forming a sustainable foundation for Afghanistan’s long-term development goals. The thesis re-assesses the current counter narcotic strategy, analyzes the pros and cons of the legalization of opium, and applies lessons drawn from qualitative comparative analysis of counter narcotics policies applied in Turkey and India. It argues that the opiate economy should be considered explicitly an Afghan problem, in which external actors do play a major role. Specific lessons are taken from external implications in chapter dedicated to analyzing the counter narcotics policies of Turkey and India, and the legalization of opium and opium for medicine schemes proposed by certain think tanks. These implications are than applied in chapters analyzing and re-assessing Afghanistan’s National Drug Control Strategy (NDCS). Overall, the current policy still lacks efficiency and effectiveness in terms of preventing the growth of opium production. Counter narcotics policy makers should take relatively successful external implications into account and after exploring and examining them, most practical and applicable features of those policies should be used towards the reduction and ultimately the elimination of opium production in Afghanistan.