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Date: November 25, 2024 Mon
Time: 8:24 pm
Time: 8:24 pm
Results for narcotics (afghanistan)
3 results foundAuthor: EastWest Institute. Joint U.S. - Russia Working Group on Afghan Narcotrafficking Title: Afghan Narcotrafficking: A Joint Threat Assessment Summary: Despite the most recent tensions in the bilateral relationship between Russia and the United States, cooperation on counternarcotics has endured, developing slowly but steadily. The EastWest Institute’s report Afghan Narcotrafficking: A Joint Threat Assessment focuses on the serious threats these two countries face from the flow of drugs from Afghanistan and its corrosive impact on Afghanistan itself. The contributors to the report point out that preventing an explosion in this opium trade is a prerequisite for improving the security of Afghanistan and its neighbors after the withdrawal of foreign troops next year. Afghan Narcotrafficking: A Joint Threat Assessment is a product of the Russian and American experts who participated in a working group convened by EWI. Leaders in this field from both countries, including representatives of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Russian Federal Drug Control Service, provided briefings and other assistance to the group. According to EWI Senior Associate Jacqueline McLaren Miller, the project’s main coordinator, “This report demonstrates that cooperation between Russia and the United States is still possible when both countries are willing to focus on a common challenge.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov echoed the same sentiments at the February 2, 2013 Munich Security Conference when he stated the need for “closer cooperation with the U.S. on Afghanistan.” There are about 30,000 heroin-related deaths in Russia every year, and most of the heroin comes from Afghanistan. Cooperation between the two countries is necessary to stem predicted growth of opium production in a post-2014 Afghanistan. The report includes a clear warning: “As NATO and U.S. troops prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan, which is still struggling with a highly volatile security situation, weak governance, and major social and economic problems, the size of the opium economy and opiate trafficking are likely to increase and pose an even greater challenge to regional and international security.” This paper will be followed shortly by a Joint Policy Assessment report, which will offer specific policy suggestions for both Russia and the United States to curtail the flow of opiates from Afghanistan. Details: New York: EastWest Institute, 2013. 60p. Source: Internet Resource: Policy Report 2013-1: Accessed April 12, 2013 at: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/20526994/JTA%20final%204-11.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Afghanistan URL: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/20526994/JTA%20final%204-11.pdf Shelf Number: 128348 Keywords: Drug TraffickingNarcotics (Afghanistan)NarcotraffickingOpium |
Author: Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction Title: Poppy Cultivation in Afghanistan, 2012 and 2013 Summary: The narcotics trade poisons the Afghan financial sector and undermines the Afghan state's legitimacy by stoking corruption, sustaining criminal networks, and providing significant financial support to the Taliban and other insurgent groups. Despite spending over $7 billion to combat opium poppy cultivation and to develop the Afghan government's counternarcotics capacity, opium poppy cultivation levels in Afghanistan hit an all-time high in 2013. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Afghan farmers grew an unprecedented 209,000 hectares of opium poppy in 2013, surpassing the previous peak of 193,000 hectares in 2007. With deteriorating security in many parts of rural Afghanistan and low levels of eradication of poppy fields, further increases in cultivation are likely in 2014. As of June 30, 2014, the United States has spent approximately $7.6 billion on counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan. Multiple sources of funding support these efforts, including the Department of Defense (DOD) Afghan Security Forces Fund, the State Department's (State) International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement fund, the DOD Drug Interdiction and Counter-Drug Activities fund, financial support from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and the U.S. Agency for International Development's Economic Support Fund. Counternarcotics efforts include the development of Afghan government counternarcotics capacity, operational support to Afghan counternarcotics forces; encouragement of alternative livelihoods for Afghan farmers; financial incentives to Afghan authorities to enforce counternarcotics laws; and, in limited instances, counternarcotics operations conducted by U.S. authorities in coordination with their Afghan counterparts. Despite the significant financial expenditure, opium poppy cultivation has far exceeded previous records. Affordable deep-well technology has turned 200,000 hectares of desert in southwestern Afghanistan into arable land over the past decade. Due to relatively high opium prices and the rise of an inexpensive, skilled, and mobile labor force, much of this newly-arable land is dedicated to opium cultivation. Poppy-growing provinces that were once declared 'poppy free' have seen a resurgence in cultivation. Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan, considered a model for successful counterinsurgency and counternarcotics efforts and deemed 'poppy free' by the UNODC in 2008, saw a fourfold increase in opium poppy cultivation between 2012 and 2013. The UNODC estimates that the value of the opium and its derivative products produced in Afghanistan was nearly $3 billion in 2013, up from $2 billion in 2012. This represents an increase of 50 percent in a single year. The attached opium cultivation figures and maps illustrate the increasing cultivation of opium in Afghanistan. Attachment I provides a graph of UNODC poppy cultivation data for 2002 through 2013. The graph includes data for Afghanistan as a whole as well as for two key opium producing provinces. The graph also includes information on some of the factors influencing the cultivation figures. The maps in attachments II and III depict the likely locations and concentrations of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Details: Arlington, VA: Special Inspector's Office, 2014. 13p. Source: Internet Resource: SIGAR-15-10-SP Special Report: Accessed October 23, 2014 at: http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/Special%20Projects/SIGAR-15-10-SP.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Afghanistan URL: http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/Special%20Projects/SIGAR-15-10-SP.pdf Shelf Number: 133804 Keywords: Counter-NarcoticsDrug ControlNarcotics (Afghanistan)Opium Poppy Cultivation |
Author: Goodman, Mary Beth Title: To Stem the Flow of Illicit Drugs from Afghanistan, Follow the Money Summary: Corruption poses an existential challenge to Afghanistan's stability, as well as its political and economic development. Under the leadership of President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, there is an opportunity for the United States to capitalize on the newly expressed political will of Afghanistan's elected leaders to curb corruption. Afghanistan's national unity government has prioritized the fight against the epidemic of graft plaguing the country, and this fight is intricately tied to the production and flow of drugs. Although the United States has invested $8 billion-as of December 30, 2014-in counternarcotics efforts, Afghanistan still leads the world in opium production, and its farmers are growing more opium than ever before. The sale of opium and cannabis - another drug of which Afghanistan is a leading cultivator on the international market - produces huge sums of cash that must be laundered, or made clean, so it can appear legitimate. This parallel market and the illicit financial transactions that sustain it have a debilitating impact on the rule of law in Afghanistan; undermine the legitimacy of government institutions; and ultimately impede the ability of the Afghan government to provide basic services to its citizens. Because no bank outside of Afghanistan denominates in the Afghani-the country's national currency-the state's drug trade runs on the flow of international currencies such as U.S. dollars, euros, and British pounds. Moreover, the weak oversight of anti-money laundering controls coupled with the systemic corruption plaguing Afghan institutions serves to compound the narcotics conundrum. The Afghan drug trade poses an immediate and urgent threat to U.S. interests in Afghanistan and to the integrity of the Afghan state itself. Greater efforts must be made to stem the flow of money derived from the narcotics trade in order to significantly reduce Afghanistan's narcotics production and curb corruption. Details: Washington, DC: Center for American Progress, 2015. 11p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 19, 2015 at: https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/AfghanistanNarcotics-brief.pdf Year: 2015 Country: Afghanistan URL: https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/AfghanistanNarcotics-brief.pdf Shelf Number: 134975 Keywords: Drug MarketsDrug TradeDrug TraffickingIllegal DrugsMoney LaunderingNarcotics (Afghanistan) |