Navigating Challenges: The ICG Reports on Taliban Drug Ban and Its Global Implications

The International Crisis Group, an NGO focused on analyzing conflicts, has reported that “After the Taliban's severe restrictions on women's rights made the regime odious to much of the outside world, the narcotics ban offers a rare opportunity to work with the new authorities on a pressing issue for the benefit of all sides.” Drugs from Afghanistan are a universal problem affecting all regions of the world except for Latin America, with Central Asia remaining one of the main routes for Afghan drugs on their way to Russia and Europe. The so-called “Northern Route” passes through Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, then to Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan before reaching the Russian and European markets. Turkmenistan also plays an important role as a transit country for drugs, but on the “Balkan route.” The drug threat from Afghanistan to the five Central Asian republics is not simply a political narrative used by the governments of these republics for their own political purposes. There is a risk of political instability, criminality, corruption, social degradation, and damage to human health as a result of drug trafficking from Afghanistan. Additionally, the elimination of Afghan drug production and trafficking is a key issue in the fight against terrorism, primarily against the Islamic State, as drugs are one of the main sources of income for these groups. In April 2022, hopes for a resolution to this problem appeared following the ban on opium poppy cultivation imposed by the Taliban. Papaver somniferum, commonly known as the opium poppy, has been cultivated in Afghanistan since at least the early twentieth century. The history of opium production is detailed in the Global Illicit Drug Trends report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Besides the history of opium production, the report provides an overview of measures taken by states in their attempts to regulate and control the drug. Opium began to dominate world drug markets in the early 1980s, after the “April Revolution” and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when the state began to lose control of rural areas, and agriculture itself began to decline. As the UNODC points out, by 1989, opium production was firmly established as the country's main source of income - Afghanistan had become a narco-state. The civil war continued, and the opium economy became firmly entrenched in the country during the 1990s. The first fall of the Taliban in 2001 and the formation of a republican government failed to change the situation due to the newly formed state still having no control over the regions. As a result, its counter-narcotics measures were not effective. It should be noted that only the Taliban managed to reduce drug production. According to the UN, since the Taliban's 2023 ban, opium crops in Afghanistan have declined by 95%, and opium prices have reached record levels. However, many experts wonder if Afghanistan will be able to continue with its chosen policy. Can the new Afghan authorities alone continue to confront the drug threat, and what should be the role of...

Central Asia Counts the Cost of Drug Trafficking

Speaking at the 67th session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in March, Zafar Samad - director of the Narcotics Control Agency under the President of Tajikistan - admitted that vast quantities of drugs are being smuggled to Europe and Russia through Tajikistan’s “northern route.” In other Central Asian nations, increased efforts are being made to curtail the problem. Kazakhstan, for example, is strengthening its legal systems and policies to effectively counter the laundering of proceeds from drug trafficking in cooperation with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The Kazakh government also recently approved a Comprehensive Plan to Combat Drug Addiction and Trafficking. Given its long and porous border with Afghanistan, however, the problem in Tajikistan remains acute. “The increase in the volume of drug seizures in Tajikistan indicates that there are large stocks of drugs in the northern provinces of Afghanistan intended for shipment along the northern route,” Samad stated. Smugglers are “assessing the situation and exploring the possibilities of transporting drugs into Tajikistan, taking into account the measures taken by the Tajik Government to strengthen the Tajik-Afghan border by creating new border facilities.” This year will see the adoption of a CSTO program aimed at fortifying the border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan. However, the “northern route” - sometimes called the “Heroin Highway” - has a long and checkered history, which has not always led to interstate cooperation. [caption id="attachment_16236" align="aligncenter" width="495"] The village of Karakul, GBAO[/caption]   The Pamir Highway route was established in the 1990s, opening up new avenues for suppliers following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Beginning in the Kyrgyz second city of Osh, the highway - the second highest international road in the world - traverses the length of Tajikistan and down through the south of Uzbekistan before terminating in Afghanistan. An estimated 15 tons of opium and 80 tons of heroin are trafficked through Tajikistan each year, the majority passing through the poverty-stricken, self-governing Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) along a desolate mountainous route known locally as Bam-i-Dunya - the Roof of the World. Said by locals to be older than Rome, Osh is a dusty spread of Soviet-era buildings adorned with satellite dishes and murals of MIG fighter jets and Misha the Bear. Having long been dubbed one of the drug capitals of Central Asia, Kalashnikov-wielding soldiers guarded cafés after dark. An ancient Silk Road route in use for millennia, the modern Pamirsky Trakt was completed in 1937. From Osh, the red soil highway ascends to the windswept mud-brick hamlet of Sary Tash, a major stopover on the smuggling route where the roads to Kashgar in China and the border with Tajikistan converge. Despite covering 45% of its landmass, the self-governing Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) is home to just 3% of the population of Tajikistan. The only Central Asian country to have descended into civil war following the collapse of the USSR, the Pamiris chose the losing side, with the five-year-long conflict leaving approximately 100,000 dead and 1.2 million...