Black gold: we need a new OPEC!

   I suspect we invaded Afghanistan because of the 2001 opium yield.

Afghanistan, as you may or may not be aware, is the primary supplier of the world's opium, producing ~90% of the planet's yield. Prior to The Coalition Of The Willing's (COW's?) invasion in 2001, the Taliban had discouraged the growth of the drug.  Just prior to the US invasion, there was hardly any opium coming out of the country, since leaders had banned its growth by making it a sin (really!). Since then, Afghan opium production has more than doubled its prior average, and so, therefore, has the availability of opium worldwide. In 2007, 2.4 million people, approximately 10% of the population, of Afghanistan were directly involved in the production of this crop (To get a perspective on this, in the US, the total percentage of the population that does any kind of farming at all is around 1%). A big point here is that in 2007, Afghans were making more opium than they had ever made before.

Consequently, the price of opium has dropped dramatically in the last two years. This in turn has resulted in a considerable drop in production of the drug as folks got back out of the racket, and grew food crops instead (you know, to eat). Here's a real humdinger: the total *decline* of opium production over the last two years in Afghanistan, which is about 20%, is about twice the total worldwide, non-Afghani-produced opium crop. Just to make sure you're paying attention, the point here is that opium production in Afghanistan is pretty much the same thing as opium production worldwide.

The first year that opium production declined, the UNODC decided it was due to bad weather. Then it happened again this year, and they had to revise their analysis.

Of course, there are organizations that are patting themselves on the back for the way their tougher tactics on opium have curbed its production. But the fact of the matter is, there wasn't really any stepping up of drug prevention efforts. They're taking credit for something that has more to do with economics than fighting crime. Drug busts were up because drug production was up. They're trying to say it's the other way around.

Additionally, they're fluffing the numbers by saying things like 20 of 34 provinces are opium free. This is probably true, but it's probably also meaningless: They're basically saying that half the country, geopolitically, is not producing opium. You know which half? the Northern half, in fact, because opium production is and always has been focused in the Southern part of the country. The provinces they're talking about aren't all the same size, either, and a lot of the big provinces are located in the South.

The decline in drug production has given folks there an idea on how to further curb this illegal form of farming. It's simple: keep the opium from leaving the country. What a terrific idea! Why didn't we think of that? Oh yeah, we have. Afghanistan, as you probably will pretend to already know, shares a large, porous border with Iran. There is also a much, much larger shared border with Pakistan. When you think about what border means, you might imagine a customs station, inspections, a fence, etc. There is no such thing. The border is not well-defined, and the idea of making it a hard border through which drugs cannot escape is, frankly, preposterous. Short of building and manning a 30-foot high wall around the country, nothing is going to stop the smuggling of opium out of Afghanistan. You could improve border security to ten times it's current state and opium would have about as much trouble getting through as so much Cap'n Crunch through a sewer grate.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but poppies grow in the ground and are bright red. It certainly wouldn't take much effort, even if it weren't well known, to figure out where they're growing. Now the drug prevention policy is supposed to focus on stopping the borders? This entails allowing people to grow as much opium as they want, and then, once they've harvested it, processed it, packaged it, and arranged for transport of the drugs, then the idea is to try and stop it from passing into Pakistan and Iran? We're occupying Afghanistan, right?

The way the UNODC determines if people in Afghanistan are growing opium poppies is by asking them. So the UNODC is not trying to prevent the growth of the drug in a direct way. the growth of poppies is overt in Afghanistan.

I can't help but feel there is a vital bit of data missing from this picture.

To tie it together a bit, the farmers of Afghanistan will grow poppies if it is a profitable enough crop. An Afghani poppy farmer can get a whopping $22 per pound (from USODC website, linked above) of opium.