Mark A.R. Kleiman - Policy Views - Counter-Narcotics in Afghanistan

Counter-Narcotics in Afghanistan

Efforts to reduce the combat drug trafficking in Afghanistan could exacerbate the ill effects that already make trafficking so harmful: poverty, corruption, and violence. A conventional counter-narcotics campaign, in which the primary goal is to reduce the volume of production, sales, and use of illicit drugs, maximizes these unintentional harms. Accordingly, a counter-narcotics campaign for Afghanistan should be specially tailored to reduce corruption, decrease the power of violent American insurgents and warlords, and improve the well-being of Afghanis.

The upside of a conventional counter-narcotics campaign is severely limited. Due to the path dependence of illicit drug production and trafficking industries, Afghanistan's history as a dominant opioid producer, and the unrelenting global demand for opiates, counter-narcotics efforts cannot realistically hope to destroy the industry in Afghanistan. Therefore, the best case scenario for a counter-narcotics efforts would be to displace the sites of production within the country and increase the price of opium and opiates. Since the export price of opiates from Afghanistan is only a sliver of the street price paid by users in purchaser countries, variations in the export price will only slightly affect the price to consumers. Therefore, even if efforts succeed in increasing the Afghani producer price, they would accomplish only modest reductions in worldwide opiate use and volume of sales from Afghanistan.

In terms of downside, a conventional campaign could increase the corruption, lawlessness, and violence that it aims to solve. Stepping up the intensity of anti-trafficking strategies could drive further business to professionals offering services to confound that enforcement: namely, corrupt officials selling exemptions from the law and violent insurgents promising safe-havens from the reach of American military and Afghani police. Since insurgents currently take a small share of illicit opiate proceeds, Kleiman estimates that disturbances in the production and trafficking industry could easily increase their proceeds. Moreover, since any increases in the export price of opiates would likely outpace reductions in export volume, a "successful" conventional counter-narcotics effort may actually grow the dollar value of the illicit Afghani opiate industry.

Kleiman and collaborators Jonathan Caulkins and Jonathan Kulick make recommendations for an Afghani counter-narcotics campaign in a 2010 paper produced for the Center on International Cooperation, including:

• As primary goals, use improving governance, security, and well-being, rather than targets for reduction in use, production and trafficking;
• Attempt, if feasible, to incentivize opium exports against selling product associated with (protected by or taxed by) insurgents and warlords;
• Elevate anti-corruption goals ahead of arrest and conviction targets, and diversify rather than concentrate enforcement power;
• Expand demand-reduction campaigns in Afghanistan and consumer countries alike, with a special emphasis on harm reduction in Afghanistan.