Afghan Morphine

Afghan morphine or "Poppy for Medicine" is an alternative development solution put forward to combat the poverty and public disenchantment caused by international counter-narcotics eradication policies in Afghanistan. Licensing opium poppy cultivation in order to locally manufacture and market Afghan morphine, according to this proposal, would create the economic conditions to empower poverty stricken rural Afghans and cut their ties with the illicit poppy trade.

Afghanistan is the world's leading producer of opium (82% of global opium production), cultivating 1,650 square kilometres of poppy and a potential 6,100 metric tons of opium in 2006, according to the UNODC World Drugs Report 2007. Afghanistan is also the source of the large majority of heroin seized in Europe. Since the US-led international intervention in 2001 to depose the Taliban, eradication programmes have been carried out by the Afghan government and their international backers, but since 2003, opium production in Afghanistan has risen sharply: the area cultivated in 2006 is 59% more than that cultivated in 2005. Equally, eradication and displacement has led to poverty among rural populations, as 2.9 million Afghans are involved in poppy cultivation. Eradication policies have, for many, led to a growing hostility among Afghans towards the government and international community who are seen to be destroying livelihoods by pursuing eradication policies.