Recently, the Frontier Post raised the issue of poppy cultivation and heroin trade/ trafficking from Afghanistan through Pakistan and other routes to the rest of the world, at the US State Department and recalled the failures of the successive US administrations and their regional partnering nations in combating this menace in the past decades. The State Department Spokesperson, Matthew Miller shed away the responsibility by opting not to commit on the law enforcement matters. The Frontier Post quoted the designation of the notorious Afghan war lord Abdul Rasheed Dostum by the United States as the world’s biggest heroin dealer and after ward alliance with Dostum’s paramilitary troops for toppling Taliban regime and appointing him as the Commander In Chief of the Afghan National Army. However, US Diplomat tactfully eluded the brainstorming analysis by the Frontier Post while throwing the ball in the Pentagon and DEA’s court who deal in defence and anti-Narcotics domains respectively.
Drug trafficking is a global illicit trade that involves the cultivation of drug crops including poppy, and marijuana, production, distribution and sale of drug substances across the world. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crimes, the global heroin market deals in around 430-450 tons of toxic material on an annual basis. Myanmar and Lao People’s Democratic Republic yield about 50 tons of opium while the rest of the 380 tons of heroin and morphine exclusively produced in Afghanistan. The majority of the drug produced in Afghanistan is being smuggled through Pakistan, Iran and Central Asian Republics to Russia and Western Europe through land and Sea routes by the global networks of drug traffickers. Meanwhile, the corrupt elements in the LEAs and Security Agencies of those nations play an important in mobilisation of this billions of dollars of illegal business in the world. Columbia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine which gave rise to organized crimes, violence and political uncertainty in majority of the nations in Latin America and other adjoining territories.
Presently, drug production and trafficking has shaped into an alternative economy while the nexus of global drug traffickers, transnational criminal networks and terrorist groups has caused a grave challenge to the civilized world. As of today, organized criminal gangs and terrorist groups are involved in drug trafficking and use this lucrative business for funds generation for use in other operations including illegal buying of firearms, terrorism financing, bribe payment to government officials/ public leaders to accomplish their illegal activities, to achieve strategic and political objectives. Historically, Afghan warlords and Taliban used drug money and exertion on poppy cultivation and drug refineries for enhancement of their strategic objectives during the war in Afghanistan, while this dirty business caused countless social, economic and security challenges in Pakistan, Central Asia, Europe and rest of the world.
The US State Department and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in collaboration with UN Office on Drug and Crimes and their regional partners in Asia, Africa, Europe and South America has been combating drug trafficking, and illicit funds including money laundering and Terrorism Financing through collective efforts and coordinated actions to completely wiped out those organized crimes from the society. The US government funds its global partners and supports them through capacity building, training and provision of latest equipment to effectively overcome this challenge while the American Drug Enforcement Agency and Pakistan’s Anti-Narcotics Force has had close liaison and cooperation at the government level throughout in the past. The US government had initiated multiple programs to stop poppy cultivation in war-hit Afghanistan, and significant success had been achieved in the areas controlled by the Afghan government, however all those successes were reversed after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Currently, the drug trafficking and the risks for the use of drug has increased many folds because of prevailing security vacuum in Afghanistan in the post US-era. The drug traffickers thrive amid lawlessness, no economic activity and lack of resources, poverty and unemployment, whereas foreign sanctions and global isolation again pushed the drug ridden Afghan nation toward poppy cultivation and heroin production. In fact, drug production and drug addiction is not only a law and order issue but it has broader social, financial and political aspects in the contemporary world. The politico-crime nexus has made this phenomenon more gruesome and troubling, because the global powers and world’s Intelligence Agencies use this business in furtherance of their strategic/ political purposes.
Historically, the civil society and media had been at the forefront in the global efforts to combat drug production, drug trafficking as well as drug addiction over the past decades, while the Frontier Post also an important part of those collective efforts and played a crucial role in the ongoing crusade against the toxic business by sensitising the world government about their official and moral obligations for the sole cause of a drug free world. At the onset of all odds and opposition, the Frontier Post will continue to play a constructive role by reporting the cursory efforts of the world nations which continuously undermines the global fight against drug trade which cost thousands of innocent lives each year in the world, until and unless it entirely wiped out from this universe.
