The Resurgence of Narcotics in Afghanistan – Implications for India

Abstract

Since the withdrawal of U.S.-led western coalition forces from Afghanistan and the takeover by the Taliban in August 2021, there has been a sudden uptick in the narcotics trade, particularly heroin. Indian agencies have apprehended many Afghan and Indian nationals and seized billions of dollars worth of heroin smuggled through the sea, air, and land routes.

The current spike in the narcotics trade happened despite intense counternarcotics programmes in the recent past. The report titled ‘Counternarcotics Lessons Learned from Experiences in Afghanistan’ published by U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction in 2018, summarised its findings, stating, “no counterdrug program undertaken by the United States, its coalition partners, or the Afghan government resulted in lasting reductions in poppy cultivation or opium production.” The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in its 2022 ‘Special Research Brief on Opium Cultivation in Afghanistan’, noted a 32 per cent rise in opium cultivation under the Taliban rule.

After the 2020 Doha agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban, the Central Asian neighbours of Afghanistan anticipated increased violence and instability in the region. Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan have placed additional protective security measures and strengthened border security, disrupting northern drug smuggling networks. The Eastern route via Iran is in active operation. Similarly, the security situation on the Durand Line has become precarious due to the offensive launched by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, supported by the Afghan Taliban. Political and economic volatility has provided opportune space for drug smugglers to move shipments through Pakistan.

In the years to come, the situation will remain the same or aggravate further as there is an uptick in drug addiction cases in the South and Central Asian region. Changed circumstances in Afghanistan demand a change in the counternarcotics policies, specifically in its neighbouring countries, including India.

Afghanistan and Opium

During the 1980s, a successful counternarcotics drive in Pakistan pushed narco-traffickers to war-torn Afghanistan. Since then, continued instability and increasing demand for opium provided a healthy environment for the narco-ecosystem to thrive. Now, Afghanistan caters to 80-85 per cent of global opiate demand.

Source: UNODC World Drug Report 2021 (P. 41)

Before the first Taliban regime in the 1990s, the production of opium was limited. Except for some individuals, the seven mujahidin parties that participated in a war against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan largely stayed away from the heroin trade. Perpetual war-like situation and later civil war destroyed the ancient Afghan agrarian base. In such an uncertain environment, opium is an ideal crop as it is non-perishable, low-weight, and high-value. Eventually, opium cultivation became crucial for Afghans, particularly in the southern and eastern provinces bordering Pakistan. Now it provides full-time employment to six hundred thousand Afghans.

Besides other individual drug lords, the Taliban, as an insurgent movement, sustained and benefitted from the drug trade. Throughout the last two decades, they were in control of the majority of poppy-producing areas, Helmand and Kandahar. In 2000-01, the Taliban banned opium production allegedly to inflate the prices in the international market, following offloading the stockpiles at higher prices.

Subsequently, when the U.S. toppled the Taliban regime in 2001, the United Kingdom, which was part of the coalition, took the lead in drafting and implementing a counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan. A substantial number of UK forces were deployed in Helmand province, the hub of opium production. After the initial failure, the UK strategy was replaced by 10-point U.S. counternarcotics programs that included: interdiction; eradication; the Good Performer’s Initiative; alternative development; demand reduction; public Awareness; counter-threat finance; prosecution; institutional development, and; international and regional cooperation.

None of these strategies proved successful because they focused solely on economics and insurgency and did not factor-in multidimensional implications for the farmers. For example, the aerial spraying of pesticides or using air force to destroy labs proved counterproductive due to the collateral damage it caused. Many of these strategies encouraged corruption within the system. Until the withdrawal, the U.S. has spent approximately USD 8-9 billion on these counternarcotics programmes.

Pakistani policies also undermined international efforts to create a favourable environment for transitioning from opium to traditional fruit and nuts-based agriculture. Afghanistan is landlocked and depends on Pakistan for transit routes and its market. Frequent border closures, inefficient and corrupt excise officials, high taxes, and inordinate delays in getting clearances for the trucks have affected genuine traders who mainly supply perishable agricultural products. In 2015, around 52,000 tons of pomegranate were exported to Pakistan, UAE, and India, which declined to 5000 tons in 2016. Poor farmers who could not afford these losses were eventually forced to cultivate opium. Even after fencing Durand Line, building gates at the checks posts, and establishing strict border controls, drug supply routes remained intact between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

During the last two decades of insurgency, the Taliban heavily relied on the drug trade for its financial independence. In 2014, Georgian authorities seized approximately 2.79 tons of liquid heroin worth USD 400 million. Subsequently, Alexander Chikaidze, Georgia’s interior minister, said during a hearing in parliament that the liquid heroin originated in Afghanistan and belonged to the Taliban.

Today, the Taliban not only have to run the organisation, but they also need to administer a State to gain global legitimacy. Thus far, no major power has recognised the Taliban as a legitimate government. The Taliban leader Haibtullah Akhundzada announced a decree on April 3, 2022, prohibiting poppy cultivation across the country and banning all narcotics substances and related activities. The decree is being perceived as a cosmetic gesture, as the Taliban will find it challenging to force people to give up poppy cultivation without providing alternative means of livelihood. However, it should be noted that the Taliban has successfully implemented many regressive policies that undermined livelihoods and wrecked the economy. The real reason could be that poppy cultivation provided the Taliban with substantial resources to exert greater control over rural Afghanistan. Consequently, the Taliban are turning a blind eye to opium production and may even encourage its cultivation. The official ban was profitable for the Taliban as it increased opium and heroin prices, making the business more attractive (USD 116/kg in March 2022 to USD 203/kg in April).

To appease the international community, the Taliban official media outlet reported 19 incidents of seizing, destroying and capturing small drug smuggling modules in 2022. But the Taliban know it is not enough, and they need to collaborate with others to combat the rise in opium cultivation and heroin smuggling.

India-Afghanistan and Heroin

At its meeting in Delhi in 1988, Interpol reported that more than 60 per cent of the heroin from Afghanistan and Pakistan was smuggled to Western Europe via Iran and Turkey (the route famously known as Golden Crescent). Only 10 per cent reached Europe via India. In the recent past, the situation has changed with the significant opioid market developing within the region itself.

With the Taliban in power in Afghanistan, and the US lost its intelligence base. States operationalised tighter border control measures throughout the South and Central Asian region. Consequently, shipping narcotics through land routes is proving to be challenging. Because of the Covid Pandemic and related restrictions, the narcotic supply chain also got altered, with large shipments getting smuggled through sea and air routes. Shipments of heroin through Pakistan and Iran have been sent to India and other countries in the Indian Ocean. In the last one-year Indian agencies have captured larger shipments of heroin across the country and coastal areas. Some of the important seizures are listed in the following table.

Date	Place	Origin	Amount in Kg	Approx. Value (USD)
Sept 15, 2021	Mundra Port, Gujrat	Afghanistan via Bandar Abbas Port in Iran	2,988	2.72 billion
Feb 1, 2021	Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi	Afghanistan via Dubai	163	37.6 million
April 28, 2022	Shaheen Bagh, Delhi	Afghanistan via Dubai	97	22.38 million
April 27, 2022	Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh	Afghanistan via Dubai	34	7.8 million
April 25, 2022	Attari check post, Punjab	Afghanistan via Pakistan	102	23.5 million
Sept 13, 2022	International Maritime Border Line, Gujrat	Pakistan	40	9.23 million
October 7, 2022	Arabian Sea, Kochi, Kerala	Afghanistan via Pakistan bound to Europe via Sri Lanka	200	46 million

Seizures of Narcotics in India – A Sample
Source: Collected from Media Reports

It should be noted that each pound of opium is refined down to less than two ounces of heroin. It takes 1-1.5 years from harvest of opium to production of heroin to its consumption in the market. According to UNDOC, the annual heroin production capacity of Afghanistan is between 500-700 Kg. Therefore, heroin seized in the last year by the Indian agencies was produced during the previous regime when India had a relatively stronger foothold in Afghanistan. The cartel was waiting for the Taliban to take over to offload the accumulated heroin over the years.

Although India had good relations with Ghani and Karzai administrations, it could not tackle this complicated issue of narcotic smuggling at its source. India tried providing alternative crops for poppy, established an agriculture university, and opened Indian markets for Afghan goods. In 2017 India established an air corridor for trade with Afghanistan, which is still operational even after the Taliban takeover. It has resulted in an 80 per cent increase in saffron imports from Afghanistan to India. However, this supply mode is comparatively expensive and can be used for only limited items. These efforts were insufficient to stem the flow of narcotics in the region, and the Indian agencies scaled up their efforts to seize the drugs in transit and at the destination.

On the positive side, the following graph indicates the success of Indian agencies. With strengthened intelligence networks, they are seizing more heroin before it reaches the consumer. On the other hand, the graph also indicates a positive co-relation between the resurgence of the Taliban from 2013, when U.S. President Obama announced the withdrawal of the majority of forces and more heroin smuggled out of the country.

Data Source: Annual reports of Narcotics Control Bureau of India, 1998 to 2021

Interestingly, the spike in production happened when the US and other Western countries had a robust on-ground intelligence presence in Afghanistan. In the last few years, Indian agencies have become more vigilant and started new initiatives to deal with this issue. In July 2022, the government launched online portals for data fusion and integrated databases of cases related narcotics trade. It is also coordinating with other countries, such as the U.S. The Third Counter Narcotics Working Group meeting between India and the U.S. was organised in July 2022. Now with the complete information blackout from Afghanistan and decreased likelihood of a Taliban clampdown on opium production, there is a possibility of increased heroin smuggling through the Indian Ocean in the future. This could become a significant hurdle for the Indian government’s vision to make Indian drug-free by 2030.

Indian Coast Guard and the Anti-Terrorism Squad, Gujarat, apprehended a Pakistani Fishing Boat carrying 77 kg of heroin, December 20, 2022. Source: Twitter/ @DefencePRO_Guj

Conclusion

Cultivation, production, and distribution of narcotics substances from Afghanistan are becoming more regional than international due to the substantial growth of opioids within the region. Therefore, unlike in the past, the reactionary measure will not help tackle the issue. Dire economic conditions will push Afghan farmers to cultivate opium, and the Taliban may not be able to control the situation. Within a few years, Afghanistan will become a haven for international criminal and extremist organisations. It will increase pressure on law enforcement agencies in the region unless they collaborate.

The U.S. counter-narcotics strategy for Afghanistan, released in 2012, proposed creating the ‘Regional Narcotics and Analysis and Illicit Trafficking Task Force. Later, the Regional Working Group on Forensic Capacity and Drugs (RWGFD) was established in 2015 under the aegis UNODC for better regional cross-border law enforcement cooperation. The issue has also been discussed in Delhi Security Dialogues, Moscow Format, and different forums of SCO.

Yet, there is no push to create any regional nodal agency for counternarcotics. There is an immediate need for a “South Asia or India & Central Asian Narcotics Fusion Centre” where agencies can get real-time information and take action accordingly. The experts from the region at the centre who know the ground realities in Afghanistan can also draft the strategy to deal with the issue of narcotics trade at the source. They can also keep tabs on the Taliban and how it handles this issue. The Centre can provide inputs to the respective governments, which can give incentives to the Taliban or pressurise it to take more robust counternarcotics measures. Unless there is a cooperative approach from all the regional countries with a strong political will to act at the source, poppy cultivation in Afghanistan will keep rising, and the smuggling network will get consolidated.

An earlier version of this paper was published by the Institute of Social and Cultural Studies India.