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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Natalman, and this is Psychoactive, a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the

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Speaker 1: show where we talk about all things drugs. But any

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Speaker 1: views expressed here do not represent those of I Heeart Media,

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Speaker 1: Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed, heat as

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Speaker 1: an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they may not

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Speaker 1: even represent my own. And nothing contained in this show

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Speaker 1: should be used as medical advice or encouragement to use

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Speaker 1: any type of drug. Hello, Psychoactive listeners. One of the

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Speaker 1: countries that was much in the news over the summer

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Speaker 1: and going into the fall as well has been Afghanistan,

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Speaker 1: And obviously that's because of the radical transformation in the

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Speaker 1: governance there, with the U. S forces withdrawing and the

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Speaker 1: government falling and the Taliban to aching over and everybody

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Speaker 1: wondering what's going to happen now that the Taliban is

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Speaker 1: back in control and wondering about it, not just about

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Speaker 1: the border political situation, but also because of drugs, because

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Speaker 1: Afghanistan has been for I don't know twenty five years

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Speaker 1: or more, with rare exceptions. The leading producer of most

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Speaker 1: of the world's opium which has converted into heroin. Uh

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Speaker 1: I say most of the world because when it comes

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Speaker 1: to the United States, we mostly get our heroin from

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Speaker 1: Mexico and in previous years from Colombia. But for Europe

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Speaker 1: and Asia Africa, it really is Afghanistan that's been the

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Speaker 1: major producer. So today's guest is perhaps the leading expert

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Speaker 1: in the world on opium and heroin and drug markets

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Speaker 1: in Afghanistan. He's a British fellow named David Mansfield. He's

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Speaker 1: somebody who's been going to Afghanistan for the last twenty

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Speaker 1: five years. He's been a consultant for all the various

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Speaker 1: governments and for all sorts of other agencies and can

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Speaker 1: assaulting things. He's written a book called The State Built

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Speaker 1: on a Sand How Opium undermined Afghanistan. And he's somebody

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Speaker 1: who understands this stuff profoundly and deeply. So David, thank

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Speaker 1: you so much for being on Psychoactive and having this

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Speaker 1: conversation with me. Thanks for such a resounding introduction, Ethan.

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Speaker 1: What actually got you into this and what brings you

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Speaker 1: to Afghanistan? And what is it the nineties for the

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Speaker 1: first time? And is it the opium issue that gets

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Speaker 1: you first engaged, or Afghanistan that gets you first engaged. Now,

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Speaker 1: it was it was in the nine nineties, traveling around

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Speaker 1: Latin America and being interested in rural development. I'm not

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Speaker 1: one of these Naco warriors or Narco types. I am

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Speaker 1: what would be rather disparagingly referred to in as a

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Speaker 1: tree hugger. I do development work. I've worked in rural development.

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Speaker 1: That's what my masters was in. I was asked to

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Speaker 1: identify a subject that I would do my sort of

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Speaker 1: master's thesis on. That's spent over a year in Latin America,

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Speaker 1: and I've come across the cocaine issue that I attempted

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Speaker 1: to try and do research on that. And then subsequently,

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Speaker 1: when the un realized that I was particularly interested in

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Speaker 1: doing this research, they said, join us and do the research.

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Speaker 1: Don't do it through other parties. Join us run our

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Speaker 1: poppy survey in Afghanistan. That's what I did for three years.

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Speaker 1: And as so my job was primarily to be the

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Speaker 1: person who said how much opium is grown in Afghanistan?

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Speaker 1: And I always felt, yeah, it's okay, you need that

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Speaker 1: as a quantitative sort of performance measure, a sort of

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Speaker 1: some sort of indicator of the scale of the problem.

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Speaker 1: But I want to know why does a farmer start

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Speaker 1: growing open poppy for the first time, how are they

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Speaker 1: introduced to it, what is the labor input into this,

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Speaker 1: what is their actual net return? Because we always see

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Speaker 1: these claims about just how much money these farmers make

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Speaker 1: compared to other crops, and then you look at how

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Speaker 1: they live and you say, so, where's the money. So

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Speaker 1: that's where I started to dig into the weeds and

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Speaker 1: look at some of these narratives that you might remember.

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Speaker 1: Some of the stories from thees were of the Taliban

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Speaker 1: provides seat and training for farmers to grow opium, polic hogwash,

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Speaker 1: not announce of truth in it. The Taliban's providing credit. No,

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Speaker 1: it's your neighbor, it's the local hatchie who has some

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Speaker 1: disposable income. It's your relative who's providing essentially an advanced

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Speaker 1: payment on a future crop. You tell him you're growing

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Speaker 1: opium and he provides an advanced payment for you and

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Speaker 1: you have to hand over harvest time a kilogram of

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Speaker 1: that opium. So we started on picking all of these

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Speaker 1: narratives and claims that were based on hearsay, and you know,

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Speaker 1: the proverbial, as we would say in English, fatbloaw down

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Speaker 1: the pub story. So I want to first go back

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Speaker 1: and let me just put this a little bit of

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Speaker 1: context for people, for our listeners, because you know, most

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Speaker 1: Americans don't know geography from anything. And Afghanistan answer country.

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Speaker 1: It's in Central Asia. It is about the same population

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Speaker 1: as Cow, foreign million people. It's roughly the size of Texas,

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Speaker 1: America's second biggest state, so it's a sizeable territory. It

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Speaker 1: has Pakistan to its eastern, its south, it has Iran

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Speaker 1: to the west. It's got the Central Asian republics of

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Speaker 1: Turkmenistan and Subekistan and Tajikistan to the north. But we're

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Speaker 1: talking about country that has been the world's leading opium

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Speaker 1: producer for roughly twenty five years. So my first question

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Speaker 1: for you, David is, I assume there's been opium going

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Speaker 1: there for a long time, but it never became the

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Speaker 1: major producer until I guess sometime in what ladies or nineties.

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Speaker 1: When was it and why was it? First of all,

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Speaker 1: that Afghanistan was not so big before, and then why

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Speaker 1: it came on so big at the time it did.

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Speaker 1: Afghanistan was a producer uh and an illegal producer going

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Speaker 1: back hundreds of years, but certainly since the twenties and

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Speaker 1: thirties there was illegal production in Afghanistan. Nineteen fifties, they

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Speaker 1: started to first try and impose their bands on opium

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Speaker 1: production to basically appeal to US foreign interest and to

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Speaker 1: basically try and gain some foothold in producing legally by

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Speaker 1: banning it in certain areas, they would be deemed an

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Speaker 1: appropriate producer for legal purposes on the international market. But

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Speaker 1: it was really since the nineteen eighties when opium poppy

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Speaker 1: cultivation really began to flourish, essentially with the rise of

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Speaker 1: the Communist government, the encourachment by the Russians, and then

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Speaker 1: subsequently the civil war with the muja Hadeen. Infrastructure was destroyed,

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Speaker 1: the irrigation systems had gone, and then subsequently, you know,

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Speaker 1: there are very few crops that you can grow and

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Speaker 1: that you can sell in the absence of that kind

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Speaker 1: of infrastructure, So people start to move to something that works,

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Speaker 1: and opium was a crop that fundamentally worked in terms

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Speaker 1: of the market comes to you. The trader will get

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Speaker 1: on his motorbike, go down that pott road full of potholes,

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Speaker 1: and he will find his way to your farm and

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Speaker 1: purchase opium at your farm gate. So subsequently opium starts

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Speaker 1: to move down from those remote upper areas in the

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Speaker 1: valleys where it has been grown for hundreds of years,

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Speaker 1: it starts to populate the much lower areas, the irrigated areas,

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Speaker 1: the areas where the Afghanist state had had influence and

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Speaker 1: power until eventually the war came and then it collapsed.

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Speaker 1: And it's in a sort of classic situation. I mean

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Speaker 1: when we think about you know, Alfred McCoy's classic book

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Speaker 1: The Politics of hero and Southeast Asia and his subsequent books,

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Speaker 1: where wherever the US was confronting on at that period

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Speaker 1: of time, communists or what they proceived as communists, you know,

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Speaker 1: they were making deals with the anti communists. So in

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Speaker 1: Southeast Asia it meant that you were working with you know,

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Speaker 1: the Oceans or Cambodians or Vietnamese who would basically were

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Speaker 1: fighting the communists, and you'd be shipping arms up to

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Speaker 1: them to fight the communists, the viet Cahan, whatever, and

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Speaker 1: then you turn a blind eye when they were shipping

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Speaker 1: the olpium or the heir I went back into Saigine

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Speaker 1: or people made the same point around the contras in

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Speaker 1: Central America, and was there a somewhat similar situation where

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Speaker 1: you know, the US and others there are trying to

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Speaker 1: undermine the Russians and it's the Mujahideen who are effective

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Speaker 1: fighters against the Russians. And similarly, Mujahideen are making money

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Speaker 1: from this. Are they getting more involved in it? And

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Speaker 1: you know the outsiders are turning a blind eye, if

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Speaker 1: not occasionally helping, because that's helping their friends and allies.

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Speaker 1: Was that fairly accurate? I mean, that's a fairly accurate reflection.

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Speaker 1: But then you've also got this situation I think where

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Speaker 1: a lot of these uh, these political military leaders, they

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Speaker 1: don't have absolute control. They are in a process of negotiation.

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Speaker 1: They are in a process of bargaining with communities. They're

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Speaker 1: trying to gain succor from them in terms of they're

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Speaker 1: trying to get sons to fight, they're trying to get

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Speaker 1: food and shelter. And as a consequence, we have this

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Speaker 1: presentation of political military leaders within Afghanistan who coerce and

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Speaker 1: control the drugs trade as opposed to farmers and communities

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Speaker 1: who have agency and an interest in cultivating these crops

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Speaker 1: because they're one of the few crops that works in

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Speaker 1: this kind of setting, and the fact that even worse,

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Speaker 1: some of these leaders willing to ban them, as we've

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Speaker 1: seen the Taliban Band of two thousand, two thousand and one,

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Speaker 1: some of the bands that took place under various regional

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Speaker 1: actors under the Kasai government. When they try to make

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Speaker 1: those bands, populations push against them because they have agency,

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Speaker 1: because they can push against them, because they have access

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Speaker 1: to guns, and some of these leaders are a little

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Speaker 1: concerned about pressing them too hard and losing that succor

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Speaker 1: and support. So this is this isn't just something that's

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Speaker 1: sort of always top down. This is something that is

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Speaker 1: about the way these crops work in these spaces and

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Speaker 1: how they appeal to the interest the economic, political interests

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Speaker 1: of a variety of different groups and different layers within

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Speaker 1: those communities and political factions. Afghanistan, i think, becomes in

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Speaker 1: the nineties the world's leading producer of cultivator of opium

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Speaker 1: and exporter of heroin. We don't seem to see as

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Speaker 1: much coming from other parts of the world. And if

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Speaker 1: you accept leave aside Mexico in the US market and

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Speaker 1: all of that, the question warning is why why Afghanistan?

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Speaker 1: Because some of the situation conditions you're describing could also

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Speaker 1: be true. I think in other parts of the world,

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Speaker 1: what do you think, I think they've got the ideal

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Speaker 1: climatic conditions for poppy cultivation. I think that helps um.

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Speaker 1: So they have in terms of it being a crop

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Speaker 1: that's ideally planted in the fall and is harvest in

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Speaker 1: the spring. It has the ideal weather conditions at those

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Speaker 1: critical points in which you know the fact that it's

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Speaker 1: got sufficient precipitation in the fall and it's got good

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Speaker 1: clear blue skies in the spring months. Afghanistan are also

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Speaker 1: has that added advantage of the fact that you do

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Speaker 1: not have and have not had a strong government for

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Speaker 1: many years, so as opposed to in many countries, you'll

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Speaker 1: see poppy growing up in those remote areas where the

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Speaker 1: soils are thin and where yields will below. In Afghanistan,

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Speaker 1: in the absence of an effective government that can enforce

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Speaker 1: its writ you basically have poppy being grown in well

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Speaker 1: irrigated valley areas, so you have the right climactic conditions

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Speaker 1: combined with the right irrigation and fertilizer and seeds all

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Speaker 1: being available. And then you also have, as a consequence

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Speaker 1: of its again, collapsive government, the war, the absence of jobs.

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Speaker 1: You also have an abundant labor force, and poppy cultivation

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Speaker 1: is an incredibly labor intensive crop. If you're growing wheat,

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Speaker 1: you'll probably take about sixty per days pertector. If you're

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Speaker 1: growing poppy, it's about three. You need cheap labor, and

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Speaker 1: it's not as if you can't learn it, but you

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Speaker 1: do need some knowledge of the crops, some good agricultural practice.

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Speaker 1: And Afghanistan has had an abundance of people who have

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Speaker 1: seen the advantages of opium poppy and worked as harvesters

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Speaker 1: in one field for someone else and then said I

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Speaker 1: could do this at home and taken that skill to

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Speaker 1: their area. And we've seen it expand as a consequence

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Speaker 1: of this mobile population with these skill sets and this

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Speaker 1: relatively good climate. We'll be talking more after we hear

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Speaker 1: this add This is a somewhat cynical hypothesis, right, but

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Speaker 1: there was a point when Thailand was any other time

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Speaker 1: it was a major producer. And then there's a point

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Speaker 1: where it appears to Thai government effectively cracks down on

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Speaker 1: a big part of the opium cultivation and it moves

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Speaker 1: over into Burma or some neighboring regions, and one could

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Speaker 1: cynically say that the thie generals aside, you know, we're

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Speaker 1: taking too much heat for all this opium cultivation. That's

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Speaker 1: what really brings down the wrath of the U. S. Government.

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Speaker 1: Let's push it over the border. Will still control the

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Speaker 1: traffic and that way will still profit um, but we

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Speaker 1: won't take the same heat for cultivation. And one might

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Speaker 1: have made the same argument that you know, in Pakistan,

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Speaker 1: the generals are going, we're getting too much shipped from

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Speaker 1: the US on this whole northwest frontier, all the traditional

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Speaker 1: opium growing there. Hey, you know, let's crack down there.

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Speaker 1: You know, Afghanistan has always been growing this stuff anyway,

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Speaker 1: Let's you know, push the locus of cultivation there. We

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Speaker 1: can still tax it and control it in various ways

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Speaker 1: and this sort of stuff. And there even some analogies

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Speaker 1: to this in Latin America. So what do you think

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Speaker 1: all bullshit or some truth to it or that's the

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Speaker 1: classic argument of the balloon effect, isn't it? And and

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Speaker 1: the argument is if demand remains static and you squeeze

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Speaker 1: on supply and one location it will shift to another.

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Speaker 1: Makes classic economic sense. But I think what's also quite

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Speaker 1: interesting is how those attempts to squeeze production in one

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Speaker 1: location can actually result in populations moving. And the populations

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Speaker 1: you describe on the Thaie border burm Allow border, they

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Speaker 1: were mobile populations. So in some cases those efforts to

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Speaker 1: squeeze actually resulted in entire villages and population saying enough

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Speaker 1: of this, I'm going across the border and I'm going

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Speaker 1: to cultivate there because i have no choice other than

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Speaker 1: to do this because there are a few options in me.

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Speaker 1: And you can see some of that on the Pakistan

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Speaker 1: Afghan border. But I suspect what we also had on

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Speaker 1: the Afghanistan side is a level of cultivation that just

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Speaker 1: wasn't being tracked as well. So rather than the balloon

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Speaker 1: being squeezed in one location and expanding in another, you

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Speaker 1: probably also had some of these processes resulting in just

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Speaker 1: the balloon just getting a lot bigger. The idea that

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Speaker 1: Afghan farmers and Afghan communities would have no agency or

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Speaker 1: just be the clients of Pakistani traffickers and traders, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think these things were running in parallel already, and

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Speaker 1: there may have been a squeeze within Pakistan and some

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Speaker 1: degree of expansion, but you already had this existing situation

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Speaker 1: in Afghanistan. Some of the areas I've been over the years,

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Speaker 1: up in the up in the boondocks, up in the hills,

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Speaker 1: people will say, we've been growing this for generations. It's

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Speaker 1: not something new. And what you heard in the nineties

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Speaker 1: and what you often saw the Taliban essentially had a

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Speaker 1: sort of small government attitude towards the economy. They weren't

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Speaker 1: controlling it, they weren't dominating it. They were finding key

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Speaker 1: nodal points in which they were tax on any movement

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Speaker 1: of any product. Look good. In fact, the World Bank

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Speaker 1: in the ninety nineties was estimating that the Taliban's primary

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Speaker 1: source of revenue was taxing the trade in in legal

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Speaker 1: goods crossing the borders, and that drugs was much smaller

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Speaker 1: percentage of their overall finance. I spent time hanging out

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Speaker 1: with opium traders in the in places like Helman, muscala A, Jackie,

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Speaker 1: sank Geen. So these are the big opium bazaars of

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Speaker 1: the ninety nineties and continuing into this century as well.

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Speaker 1: This is all in that southwestern area of Helmon. Kind

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Speaker 1: of horror, Yeah, this is I was also spent some

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Speaker 1: time in some of the bazaars in the East as well.

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Speaker 1: But I would be hanging out in some of these

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Speaker 1: bazaars and talking to opium traders about their life and

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Speaker 1: about how they got into the business. I was interested

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Speaker 1: in as a development person, the rural livelihood person, how

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Speaker 1: have you got into this business and how has it changed?

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Speaker 1: And they'd often describe a situation in the days of

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Speaker 1: the war civil war in the Mudja Haddeen, just before

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Speaker 1: the Taliban had come to power ninety four ninety six

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Speaker 1: in the south, and they'd say, look, you know, in

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Speaker 1: the old days, we had so many roadbooks that would

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Speaker 1: have to deal with because each Mujahadeen party would control

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Speaker 1: a particular part of territory and there'll be so many

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Speaker 1: expenses associated with it. There was one individual I remember

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Speaker 1: in a district in Kandahar, and we were going to

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Speaker 1: clean this irrigation system on the basis that if we

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Speaker 1: cleaned it for this community, they should give up poppy

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Speaker 1: what we call conditionality. And so I was trying to understand, Okay,

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Speaker 1: who gains who loses by this activity and will it

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Speaker 1: make a fundamental difference to their life so that they

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Speaker 1: can abandon poppy cultivation. And this guy was set by

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Speaker 1: the little irrigation system. And I asked him, how will

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Speaker 1: this change your life? And he picked up a really

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Speaker 1: small stone and he said this much. And he said,

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Speaker 1: I'm a sharecropper. I live in this village, but I'm

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Speaker 1: not from this village. He didn't own land and therefore

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Speaker 1: didn't have a political stake in this village. And he said,

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Speaker 1: all that does for me. This means that I get

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Speaker 1: the same share of the final yield of the land,

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Speaker 1: but because of the improved water, it might be a

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Speaker 1: little bit of a bigger yield, so I might have

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Speaker 1: some extra. But this does nothing for me. And as

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Speaker 1: I sat there, a guy who looks clearly much wealthier

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Speaker 1: than this sharecrop I'm talking to passes by and he

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Speaker 1: stops and he's got a nice watch, and he starts

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Speaker 1: chatting to me, and he he mocks my bad watch,

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Speaker 1: and he says it's cheap, and he claims this is

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Speaker 1: rado and he's just bought it on the Iranian Afghan border.

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Speaker 1: And I said, well, how come you got so much money.

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Speaker 1: I'm an opium trader, And so I started talking to

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Speaker 1: him about his years in the business. As I had

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Speaker 1: been doing in other places. And he says to me,

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Speaker 1: the Taliban is great for us because they've removed all

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Speaker 1: these these checkpoints. They're all gone, he said, in the

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Speaker 1: old days, and he was He had a motorbike and

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Speaker 1: on the back of the bike was one of these panniers,

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Speaker 1: sort of classic fabric pannier. And he says, in one

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Speaker 1: side I used to have a gun and the other

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Speaker 1: side I'd have money, because if I went to a checkpoint,

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Speaker 1: I'd either have to fight my way through or pay

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Speaker 1: my way through. Now nothing, The Taliban has been great

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Speaker 1: for business. And so what I kept coming across with

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Speaker 1: interviewing these various traders, they were more the pillars of

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Speaker 1: the community. They were more wealthy. Many of them have

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Speaker 1: done their hearts. But all of them described the situation

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Speaker 1: of when the days of the muja Hadeen. This was

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Speaker 1: a costly business and difficult business. The Taliban had come in.

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Speaker 1: It was an easy business. You could travel between a

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Speaker 1: z and not have to risk your life or risk

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Speaker 1: your profits. They didn't describe the situation which the Taliban

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Speaker 1: controlled the business. This was still a large amount of subcontractors.

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Speaker 1: Everyone was was a free agent who could operate within

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Speaker 1: these kind of spaces. So a lot of this discussion

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Speaker 1: that we have around how the Taliban controls or is

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Speaker 1: a cartel, this is just a historical from from an

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Speaker 1: Afghan perspective. This is not how Afghanistan functions and works.

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Speaker 1: You don't have that degree of vertical integration in these

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Speaker 1: kind of terrains. Yeah, I mean, I mean, the one

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Speaker 1: things I love about your book and your other writing is,

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Speaker 1: you know, you just delve into the complexity of this thing.

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Speaker 1: You know. It's like sometimes when we think and we

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Speaker 1: talk about the communist government this or that or this

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Speaker 1: auditory the government, and we're a in fact, there's multiple

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Speaker 1: competing factors in the government, and you point out when

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Speaker 1: you're talking about the Taliban, there are different factions in

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Speaker 1: this thing, and there's the central government, then there's the

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Speaker 1: local whether we're talking about back in the nineties or

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Speaker 1: what's emerging today, and that even locally. I think you

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Speaker 1: at one point, I can't remember the exact quote you use,

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Speaker 1: but you say, the same person maybe working for the

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Speaker 1: central government on salary as a mayor, governor and at

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Speaker 1: the same time having alliance with the Taliban and at

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Speaker 1: the same time play some role in cracking down on

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Speaker 1: certain elements of opium. So these incredibly complex situations and

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Speaker 1: fluid and changing over time and also varying dramatically geographically

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Speaker 1: from one part of the country to the next. When

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Speaker 1: we talk about Taliban and we think in some kind

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Speaker 1: of unitary actor, that's a fundamental mistake. Is what I

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Speaker 1: pick up from my good friends and colleagues always say

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Speaker 1: to me, I say, where do you think the Taliban

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Speaker 1: come from? Space? The sky? There are brothers, there are cousins,

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Speaker 1: there are family members. So you end up with these

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Speaker 1: scenarios in in some of these areas of Afghanistan that

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Speaker 1: where poppy cultivation has been grown for many, many years,

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Speaker 1: and where there are few options, and so you'd end

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Speaker 1: up with this hybrid situation where you have a family

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Speaker 1: who has a son in the army, a son in

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Speaker 1: the police, they grow poppy, they receive some kind of

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Speaker 1: development systems from the government. They might have a brother

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Speaker 1: who's a teacher in the local school, but they've invited

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Speaker 1: the Taliban in because they can't afford not to have poppy.

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Speaker 1: So you'd have this hybrid governance of this combination of

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Speaker 1: different powerful factions who would be shaping this space and

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Speaker 1: it would be the communities themselves that would be shaping

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Speaker 1: that space through these various deals that they were striking

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Speaker 1: with these different institutions. What you describe from when you

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Speaker 1: first got there in the late nineties of basically the

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Speaker 1: Taliban and offering a better option to all be a

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Speaker 1: people involved in opium cultivation and trade. Now the Taliban

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Speaker 1: are back in. What are they gonna do here? I

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Speaker 1: mean they're gonna burn everybody and say we're cracking down

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Speaker 1: an opium and heroin again like we did in two thousand,

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Speaker 1: or are they gonna what's your prediction? It's not a

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Speaker 1: wise thing to do ban opium your first day in

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Speaker 1: the office. That some recent work that we've just done

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Speaker 1: in the southwest province of nimroals illustrates that whilst the

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Speaker 1: Taliban revenue from drugs is relatively small compared to the

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Speaker 1: money it's making from taxing the cross border trade akin

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Speaker 1: to the nineties, so once the Taliban managed to position

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Speaker 1: itself on major highways and exploit the scale of the

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Speaker 1: cross border trade in cigarettes, tires, diesel, the every day

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Speaker 1: the mundane, once they could sort of impose the taxation

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Speaker 1: system on the main highways on those goods. It was

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Speaker 1: making so much more money on that than it was

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Speaker 1: from drugs. But there's a butt to this in relation

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Speaker 1: to the fact that those opium poppy farmers are still

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Speaker 1: an important rural constituency. We estimated in one province numerals,

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Speaker 1: the Taliban was earning something like five million from drugs,

401
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Speaker 1: and that wasn't just opious, of course, because we now

402
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Speaker 1: have meth production in Afghanistan, but they were making five

403
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Speaker 1: million from drugs, and they were making forty million from

404
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Speaker 1: taxing the trade from Iraq because there are a few

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Speaker 1: key choke points within this particular province, so of their

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Speaker 1: money was earned from taxing legal goods. It's a minor

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Speaker 1: form of income for them, but absolutely critical rural constituency.

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Speaker 1: And so you just can't turn on these farmers who

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Speaker 1: have provided you support for years. And you can't turn

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Speaker 1: on them because in particular relation to poppy cultivation, because

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Speaker 1: for years you've been sort of advocating for continued poppy cultivation,

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Speaker 1: and when the Afghan government the Republic was coming in

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Speaker 1: and banning opium in some of these locations, the Taliban

414
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Speaker 1: would use it as a political strategy to say this

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Speaker 1: government doesn't understand you we're Afghan you we know your

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Speaker 1: Afghan you need to grow poppy because of your economic situation.

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Speaker 1: But these people are banning opium. This republic is banning

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Speaker 1: opium because of the foreigners, and so they were using this,

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Speaker 1: the Taliban to try and gain political support in these

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Speaker 1: rural areas. So the first thing, you just don't come

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Speaker 1: into office and then say, right, we're gonna forget that

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Speaker 1: rural constituency. We're going to turn off this spigot. Do

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Speaker 1: you look in Mexico at these horrific wars between the

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Speaker 1: Jalisco Gang and the sin of Lower gang or others,

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Speaker 1: or what used to happen in Colombia maybe still does

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Speaker 1: between the Median and the Kali and this and that,

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Speaker 1: you know, wars over turf ripping one another off. I mean,

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Speaker 1: all this sort of stuff in Afghanistin. You just don't

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Speaker 1: hear as much about that sort of thing. Is that

430
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:47,600
Speaker 1: because it's not happening in that way? Or is it

431
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:49,639
Speaker 1: and we just don't hear about we don't hear about it.

432
00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:51,919
Speaker 1: You're right, And as I say, I've I've hung around

433
00:24:51,920 --> 00:24:54,320
Speaker 1: with opium trades in the nineties, and you know we're

434
00:24:54,359 --> 00:24:56,360
Speaker 1: doing a lot of work with people who are involved

435
00:24:56,359 --> 00:24:59,560
Speaker 1: in processing and and trade now and you still don't

436
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:02,320
Speaker 1: hear about So it's almost as if there's enough business

437
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:05,680
Speaker 1: to go around. But also potentially an issue of market

438
00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:08,400
Speaker 1: structure and the fact that you do have these these

439
00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:11,720
Speaker 1: independent operators of a certain size, and that there isn't

440
00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:15,280
Speaker 1: that dominant force that's trying to remove competition. This is

441
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:20,920
Speaker 1: a much more cooperative yet competitive space. There's a cultural

442
00:25:21,080 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 1: I mean, is there a reason why you don't have

443
00:25:22,640 --> 00:25:24,800
Speaker 1: one person who tried to take over a kind of

444
00:25:24,840 --> 00:25:27,160
Speaker 1: horror and the whole thing by killing a whole bunch

445
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:29,000
Speaker 1: of the other people involved in this thing and trying

446
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:32,679
Speaker 1: to monopolize that thing. Again, that kind of vertical integration

447
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:35,439
Speaker 1: doesn't really exist. What you do is you have this

448
00:25:35,520 --> 00:25:39,240
Speaker 1: small government approach to the taxation of commodities as they

449
00:25:39,280 --> 00:25:41,880
Speaker 1: move through space. So you you step in at key

450
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 1: points along the value chain and you tax rather than

451
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:47,960
Speaker 1: you try and control that entire value chain. Because controlling

452
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:50,800
Speaker 1: that entire value chain in an environment like Afghanistan, with

453
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:55,320
Speaker 1: its various fractures and it's very localized political actors and

454
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:59,320
Speaker 1: tribal actors, means you really can't gain that degree of

455
00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:04,040
Speaker 1: dominance over a market like this. So, David, the subtitle

456
00:26:04,080 --> 00:26:08,720
Speaker 1: of your book was how Opium Undermined Afghanistan. So I

457
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:11,199
Speaker 1: guess you're talking about these past twenty years. Why do

458
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:14,440
Speaker 1: you say undermined Afghanistan when it seemed to be such

459
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:17,240
Speaker 1: a huge sort of jobs and employment in all of

460
00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:20,119
Speaker 1: this because of his illegal nature, Because of its illegal nature,

461
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:22,200
Speaker 1: then you can't tax it. You you know, all those

462
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:28,520
Speaker 1: classic arguments around why an illegal crop has a dysfunctional

463
00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:31,600
Speaker 1: element to it in relation to a state building process,

464
00:26:31,920 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 1: the levels of corruption. You get the fact that you

465
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 1: can't tax it. But fundamentally, you know, I think we

466
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:41,880
Speaker 1: often overstate the value of opium within these rural communities

467
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:46,880
Speaker 1: in terms of communities aspirations and what they wish to achieve.

468
00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:51,560
Speaker 1: People will talk about opium poppy as a very difficult

469
00:26:51,560 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 1: crop to grow. We had a colleague who was interviewing

470
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:57,320
Speaker 1: woman about poplic cultivation up in the northeast, kind of

471
00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:01,480
Speaker 1: baddick Shahn, and she wrote down tears and she referred

472
00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:04,600
Speaker 1: to the fact that this was a source of misery

473
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:09,960
Speaker 1: for her because yes, they cultivated opium poppy, but her son,

474
00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:13,440
Speaker 1: who was very small, had been taking the opium that

475
00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:16,800
Speaker 1: had been harvested and placed by the field, and the

476
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 1: child was taking opium out and eating it and subsequently

477
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:23,400
Speaker 1: died of an overdose. And she was still growing opium.

478
00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:25,760
Speaker 1: And she said, what to do? I have no choice.

479
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:29,080
Speaker 1: This is the our economic reality. When you actually talk

480
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:32,000
Speaker 1: to many of these communities. They want to be doing

481
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 1: something else. They want a job, they want a job

482
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:36,879
Speaker 1: in a factory, they want to be growing other things,

483
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 1: and you know, so there's this limited options for them

484
00:27:40,280 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 1: and limited opportunities that they wish was not the case.

485
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:45,440
Speaker 1: I think if you look over the last twenty years,

486
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:50,480
Speaker 1: there has been a significant change in the number of

487
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 1: options that they had in relation to how they could

488
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:57,639
Speaker 1: earn money. So I've watched communities where would be a

489
00:27:57,720 --> 00:27:59,639
Speaker 1: large amount of poppy in that area. I mean it

490
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:02,680
Speaker 1: wouldn't be at the mark as you'd have in the mountains,

491
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:07,360
Speaker 1: but it would be at the mark. And those communities

492
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:09,679
Speaker 1: have gone down to zero or had gone down to

493
00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 1: zero over the last twenty years because again they had opportunity.

494
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:17,359
Speaker 1: Suddenly the road was improved. They could travel to the

495
00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:22,639
Speaker 1: market daily. They could take crops like leak or cauliflower

496
00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:26,960
Speaker 1: or tomato's each day. They could sell it there. Instead

497
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:32,159
Speaker 1: of being reliant on this highly labor intensive crop, they

498
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:36,040
Speaker 1: would be growing a mixture of vegetables and begetting four

499
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:38,720
Speaker 1: crops per year instead of two crops per year. Mixing

500
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 1: poppy with say maize, so they could actually increase their

501
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 1: income levels compared to poppy because they had good water,

502
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:49,040
Speaker 1: good roads, they were near the market, and as a

503
00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 1: consequence of some of the improvements in relation to governance

504
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:55,600
Speaker 1: and security, they were relatively secure in moving down that

505
00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:57,720
Speaker 1: road and going to the market, and there were jobs

506
00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:00,200
Speaker 1: in the city. And so I think we are from

507
00:29:00,520 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 1: overstate the importance or the level of dependency of poppy

508
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:09,240
Speaker 1: within Afghanistan. It is in particular kinds of communities and

509
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:13,240
Speaker 1: areas under particular conditions that you have this really high

510
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 1: level of dependency, and many people do want to make

511
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 1: that transition out of poppy. When it comes to the

512
00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:23,560
Speaker 1: people involved in the business, the refining, the export, I mean,

513
00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:25,720
Speaker 1: do you have any sense of is it a very

514
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 1: regionally based thing? Is this something with external players? Pakistani's,

515
00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:35,280
Speaker 1: Iranians others are playing a significant role. People off the

516
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:37,719
Speaker 1: Times point out the peasants only get a tiny percentage

517
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:40,480
Speaker 1: of the actual ultimate streat value of these drugs, and

518
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:43,160
Speaker 1: that it's the people involved in the trafficking who get

519
00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 1: significantly more, at least than the farmers deal who's making

520
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:48,760
Speaker 1: money from this stuff. Anyone who can move volume was

521
00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:51,600
Speaker 1: making money. I mean, if you look at the margins

522
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:53,600
Speaker 1: on all of these. We've been doing some work on

523
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 1: smuggling of opium, processing of heroin, processing of meth amphetamine,

524
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:01,320
Speaker 1: and the profit margins are much less than people think,

525
00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:03,520
Speaker 1: even though you're further up the value chain. So if

526
00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 1: you're producing that, your real money is going to be

527
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:07,880
Speaker 1: if you can get it across the border into Iran

528
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 1: or Pakistan. It depends whether you are producing and trading

529
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:16,000
Speaker 1: or just producing. But nobody emerges as a kind of

530
00:30:16,040 --> 00:30:20,240
Speaker 1: Pablo Escobar or El Chapo in Afghanistan. I mean, these

531
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 1: guys are you know, there seems to be serious evidence

532
00:30:22,240 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 1: they were making in some cases tens or hundreds of

533
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:28,080
Speaker 1: millions of dollars. Is there some Afghan expats sitting in

534
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 1: Pakistan who's actually making huge amounts of money by controlling

535
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:36,600
Speaker 1: big parts of the distribution or something equivalent in Iran

536
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:40,400
Speaker 1: or someplace else. You'll hear the claims, You'll hear the

537
00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:46,360
Speaker 1: names that have been discussed, typically amongst Western officials. But

538
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 1: the realities, I mean, what we see on the ground

539
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan, as I've mentioned earlier, is there a lot

540
00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:57,080
Speaker 1: of independent operators. I cannot, as a drug trader move

541
00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 1: my drugs between A to Z. I have basically pay

542
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 1: someone to move them from A to B because that

543
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 1: territory is run by this particular group or this particular population.

544
00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:09,080
Speaker 1: Between B and see it's another person C and D.

545
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:13,400
Speaker 1: And this results in massive transaction and transportation costs. That's

546
00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:16,480
Speaker 1: what we've been seeing. So all of that's cutting into

547
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:20,640
Speaker 1: your profit margins. So it's those who can move products

548
00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 1: with certainty and in volume that are going to be

549
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:27,120
Speaker 1: really making the money because there are so many costs

550
00:31:27,160 --> 00:31:31,520
Speaker 1: associated with this business that are never factored in when

551
00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:36,200
Speaker 1: we see these discussions around profitability of drugs. Let's take

552
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:47,160
Speaker 1: a break here and go to an ad, right, So

553
00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:49,800
Speaker 1: now let's flash forward here to to Alibi and are

554
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:52,560
Speaker 1: sort of a control again. For the last few months,

555
00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:55,160
Speaker 1: foreign governments are all saying most of them are saying

556
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 1: we don't want to deal with you. All of the

557
00:31:56,520 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 1: Russian and Chinese sound like they're more willing to play

558
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:01,440
Speaker 1: bore the UN has got to figure out what's going on.

559
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 1: The economy looks like it could just implode. So if

560
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:09,240
Speaker 1: somebody's are asking you for advice about in engaging with

561
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: the Taliban right now, what's your own thoughts about how,

562
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:16,640
Speaker 1: let's say your own government, the UK government, which played

563
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:18,600
Speaker 1: a lead role, you know, and trying to deal with

564
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:21,480
Speaker 1: opium and heroin after the occupation in two thousand one two,

565
00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:24,720
Speaker 1: what would you be advising them about how to deal

566
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 1: with the Taliban and how to deal with the obium

567
00:32:26,800 --> 00:32:29,280
Speaker 1: issue there In terms of the of the drugs issue,

568
00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:31,760
Speaker 1: I mean, I really don't think that that's your starting

569
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:34,720
Speaker 1: point in terms of engaging with the Taliban. I think

570
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 1: there are far more fundamental issues around humanitarian assistance that

571
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:41,479
Speaker 1: need to be addressed, And I suppose I would be

572
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:45,880
Speaker 1: somewhat concerned if people tried to make humanitarian assistance that

573
00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:50,080
Speaker 1: alone development, because assistance conditional on drug control efforts, which

574
00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:52,280
Speaker 1: is what has happening in the nineteen nineties. We were

575
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 1: all somewhat constrained in the nineties about what kind of

576
00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:58,720
Speaker 1: work we could do under the Taliban. We couldn't do

577
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:01,920
Speaker 1: any capacity building with the Leban authorities in the ninety nineties,

578
00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 1: and what came under that that rubric of capacity building

579
00:33:05,720 --> 00:33:07,840
Speaker 1: we were meant to do humanity in assistance in the

580
00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:12,160
Speaker 1: ninety nineties, Well, we were doing a variety of projects

581
00:33:12,160 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 1: that I would have argued stepped outside of that, and

582
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 1: some of the projects that we were doing, we're actually

583
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:21,040
Speaker 1: asking communities to give up poppy to receive development systems.

584
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 1: So in fact, you're in danger of undermining their all

585
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:30,160
Speaker 1: livelihoods by setting up projects where you provide short term

586
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 1: assistance of a single sector on the basis that they

587
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 1: give up drug crop cultivation. It doesn't work. It's never worked.

588
00:33:37,720 --> 00:33:39,320
Speaker 1: That's the sort of thing the u N was doing

589
00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:42,120
Speaker 1: at the time. I certainly don't think your start of

590
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:47,080
Speaker 1: your conversation is something as deep seating and as complex

591
00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:49,120
Speaker 1: as the drugs issue. And I think we have to

592
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:52,720
Speaker 1: be a lot more realistic about what Taliban control of

593
00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 1: Carboard means in relation to the drugs situation. I think

594
00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 1: if you look at what was happening prior to the

595
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:05,000
Speaker 1: Taliban taking Cardle capturing the government, the Lion's share of

596
00:34:05,040 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 1: the territory where drugs has been grown was outside the

597
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:09,840
Speaker 1: rid of the government. I'm not saying it was necessarily

598
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:11,720
Speaker 1: in the control of the Taliban, but it was outside

599
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:13,640
Speaker 1: the rid of the government. So the fact that the

600
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:18,040
Speaker 1: Taliban has now taken this extra territory doesn't fundamentally change

601
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:20,200
Speaker 1: the politics of the fact that people were growing drugs

602
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:24,799
Speaker 1: in particular areas. So the Taliban economically and politically, the

603
00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 1: fact that they have couple doesn't necessarily mean that people

604
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:30,279
Speaker 1: are going to turn to drugs. What will mean that

605
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 1: people will tend to drugs is the economic crisis they face,

606
00:34:33,680 --> 00:34:36,080
Speaker 1: which is one in which we have the collapse of

607
00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:39,800
Speaker 1: the government. The absence of government jobs, which were critical

608
00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:44,320
Speaker 1: in terms of non farm income globally, in every country

609
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:47,440
Speaker 1: that's produced drugs, non farm income has been one of

610
00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:51,839
Speaker 1: the things that has reduced rural communities dependency on drug

611
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:54,760
Speaker 1: crop cultivation. So in the absence of those government jobs,

612
00:34:54,800 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 1: there's no longer any aid money coming in, there's no

613
00:34:57,560 --> 00:35:01,440
Speaker 1: longer construction business, you know, no one important cement any longer.

614
00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:05,400
Speaker 1: This means that people they either leave the country because

615
00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:07,239
Speaker 1: they haven't got a job in the city, or they

616
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:09,279
Speaker 1: go back to their villages. And if they're going back

617
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 1: to their villages, what are they going to grow in

618
00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:14,440
Speaker 1: the absence of dispose of Lincoln. In the absence of

619
00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:17,799
Speaker 1: functioning markets, drugs starts to fill the vacuum, and the

620
00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:20,120
Speaker 1: Chinese and Russian governments and then they've been you know,

621
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:23,160
Speaker 1: viciously pro drug war in terms of their engagement with

622
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:25,239
Speaker 1: the UN and elsewhere. But do they have a much

623
00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:27,879
Speaker 1: more pragmatic attitude when it comes to the heroin coming

624
00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 1: out of Afghanistan because they're the ones, obviously, you know,

625
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:33,560
Speaker 1: saying we want to deal with the tally bind right now.

626
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:36,720
Speaker 1: Or do they sort of acknowledge that the supply side

627
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:39,520
Speaker 1: control is pretty limited no matter what you do. What

628
00:35:39,560 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 1: do you think? I mean, it's a good question, actually,

629
00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:44,680
Speaker 1: because at certain points the Russians were particularly vocal about

630
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:48,799
Speaker 1: the drugs issue in Afghanistan. Certainly, if we think about

631
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:51,040
Speaker 1: some of the meetings that took place in two thousand

632
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:53,560
Speaker 1: and ten when there was an attempt to though the

633
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:57,239
Speaker 1: relationship between the US and Russia, some of those discussions

634
00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 1: focused on the drugs issue. But after a for years

635
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:03,200
Speaker 1: of that, they went very quiet, and I don't think

636
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:05,760
Speaker 1: we've heard much from them since around the truck's issue

637
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:09,040
Speaker 1: within Afghanistan. You know, I'd be surprised if that was

638
00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:12,200
Speaker 1: something that they really pushed to the four at this point, David,

639
00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 1: let me ask you. I mean, it's a kind of

640
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 1: impossible to answer what if but for a type of question,

641
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:18,719
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna actally anyway. Right. We know that, you know,

642
00:36:18,719 --> 00:36:21,120
Speaker 1: when you look at the fall of Ghani's government and

643
00:36:21,239 --> 00:36:24,120
Speaker 1: tell them to takeover. We know that corruption and ineffective

644
00:36:24,120 --> 00:36:26,759
Speaker 1: governance and all of this played a huge role in

645
00:36:26,800 --> 00:36:30,160
Speaker 1: all this stuff. But I'm also wondering the question if

646
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:33,440
Speaker 1: what if the US, the Brits, what if they had

647
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 1: just never given a damn about the opium thing? Right

648
00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:38,160
Speaker 1: because right after the occupation in late two thousand and

649
00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:39,560
Speaker 1: want of two US and two it seems for a

650
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 1: while that the US is saying, we don't We're not

651
00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:43,200
Speaker 1: going to take go after opium right now. There there's

652
00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:45,200
Speaker 1: sort of following the advice you give now, right, this

653
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 1: thing is well established, But then it becomes a bigger

654
00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:51,040
Speaker 1: and bigger and bigger issue, forcing the government flourishing cars

655
00:36:51,080 --> 00:36:53,319
Speaker 1: I first and then GANI to crack down one way

656
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:56,200
Speaker 1: or another, and all of the bullshit that surrounded that.

657
00:36:56,480 --> 00:37:01,560
Speaker 1: What if that had never been a priority of external forces,

658
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:05,000
Speaker 1: would the Taliban do you think have been able to

659
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:07,600
Speaker 1: take over the way they did now, because it seems

660
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:10,120
Speaker 1: that they did gain so much traction in many parts

661
00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:12,760
Speaker 1: of the country from the fact that they could present

662
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:16,719
Speaker 1: themselves as the ones, you know, not pushing for this

663
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:19,440
Speaker 1: type of bands in the way that the foreigners were

664
00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 1: pushing cars. Iion GNI in the center, in the central ground.

665
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:23,600
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there are far too many other

666
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:26,000
Speaker 1: factors at play. Certainly on a number of occasions it

667
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:29,400
Speaker 1: certainly didn't help. And you certainly describe a situation as

668
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:32,400
Speaker 1: I remember it in the early days. In fact, I

669
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:36,759
Speaker 1: remember being sat in a meeting with very senior US officials.

670
00:37:36,800 --> 00:37:38,680
Speaker 1: It was a it was a side meeting at a

671
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:42,359
Speaker 1: UN conference, and this discussion about drugs coming up. So

672
00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:48,040
Speaker 1: this is early two two and very senior US official

673
00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:50,680
Speaker 1: and fact the head of iron L at the time, said,

674
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:53,759
Speaker 1: this isn't about drugs, this is about development. This is

675
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:57,880
Speaker 1: about afghan reconstruction, and this is how we should proceed

676
00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:01,359
Speaker 1: within Afghanistan. Recognizing the drugs is an issue, and that's

677
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:05,279
Speaker 1: how it's presented. Two years two thousand and four, when

678
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 1: the poppy cultivation figures went through the roof, suddenly your

679
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:13,880
Speaker 1: performance indicators fundamentally change there's no space for that kind

680
00:38:13,920 --> 00:38:18,200
Speaker 1: of reflection of reality. Now it becomes about politics, and

681
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:21,759
Speaker 1: I think ever since then, levels of drug crop cultivation

682
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:26,160
Speaker 1: become a fundamental performance indicator associated with is the Afghan

683
00:38:26,160 --> 00:38:29,440
Speaker 1: reconstruction effort and the state building project on target or not?

684
00:38:30,239 --> 00:38:33,200
Speaker 1: Because by two thousand three, two thousand four, people are

685
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:36,760
Speaker 1: talking about the Afghan National Army being stood up, girls

686
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:40,160
Speaker 1: in school schools open. All these indicators were some of

687
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:43,080
Speaker 1: them are quite positive, but the press would keep saying,

688
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:45,759
Speaker 1: but what about the opium? It's through the roof, And

689
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:50,120
Speaker 1: so subsequently that state building project starts to hang in

690
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:53,600
Speaker 1: the balance in relation to some of the media coverage saying, well, yeah,

691
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:55,600
Speaker 1: you might be saying, there's all these good things happening

692
00:38:55,600 --> 00:38:58,799
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan, but poppies through the roof, how can you

693
00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:01,759
Speaker 1: say it's successful? And politicians start to respond to that,

694
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:04,440
Speaker 1: and a lot of the discussions in the book I've

695
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:08,479
Speaker 1: wrote is about how that manifests at a local level,

696
00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:11,240
Speaker 1: at a provincial level, at a national level. A strong

697
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:14,759
Speaker 1: state doesn't have poppy. If you have poppy, you're a

698
00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:18,800
Speaker 1: weak state, or you're a weak province. You're a weak governor,

699
00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 1: you're a weak head of military commandership who's running that province.

700
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:28,280
Speaker 1: So there is this effort to drive poppy cultivation out,

701
00:39:28,920 --> 00:39:34,440
Speaker 1: regardless of the longer term consequences. They certainly undermined efforts

702
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 1: by imposing a blanket van across a large area, regardless

703
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:43,080
Speaker 1: as the socio economic political circumstances of those communities. Areas

704
00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 1: could give up poppy tomorrow. They have a son who's

705
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:48,799
Speaker 1: got a job in the city, They've got good irrigation

706
00:39:48,880 --> 00:39:51,800
Speaker 1: and a decent road, and they can grow a variety

707
00:39:51,800 --> 00:39:54,239
Speaker 1: of different crops on their agricultural land. And when you

708
00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:56,759
Speaker 1: ban poppy in those areas, farmers just shrug it off

709
00:39:56,760 --> 00:39:58,759
Speaker 1: and go, oh well, back to the other stuff. But

710
00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:02,080
Speaker 1: if you impose that ban up in the boondocks, where

711
00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 1: they have none of those opportunities, and where the Afghan

712
00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:08,880
Speaker 1: government has always been weak, has never had a presence

713
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:12,080
Speaker 1: and doesn't have any service delivery, you impose a ban

714
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:15,360
Speaker 1: in there, and they're often on border areas. The population

715
00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:19,640
Speaker 1: response it starts to experience this collective economic shock, It

716
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:23,080
Speaker 1: starts to react politically, starts to invite people in who

717
00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:26,760
Speaker 1: might resist the government, and then it starts to crack.

718
00:40:27,320 --> 00:40:30,680
Speaker 1: We kept going for these blanket bands rather than this

719
00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:34,640
Speaker 1: development process, which would be a far more about supporting

720
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:38,400
Speaker 1: farmers transition. M hm. So I'm going to ask you

721
00:40:38,440 --> 00:40:41,600
Speaker 1: my last what if question. You've pointed out in your book,

722
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:44,960
Speaker 1: how oftentimes people underestimate the impact for example, of droughts

723
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:48,400
Speaker 1: or blight, or all of a sudden wheat is paying

724
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:50,879
Speaker 1: a competitive close rise doing really well, and how those

725
00:40:50,920 --> 00:40:54,319
Speaker 1: things can actually impact significantly at opient production in the

726
00:40:54,440 --> 00:40:57,600
Speaker 1: entire country are certainly in regions. What if fentanyl takes

727
00:40:57,640 --> 00:41:01,239
Speaker 1: over the world right now, fentanyls the synthetic opiate. You

728
00:41:01,280 --> 00:41:03,640
Speaker 1: don't need any opium plan. It's not like morphine. It's

729
00:41:03,680 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 1: purely synthetic. We've already seen that there are parts the

730
00:41:06,719 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 1: United States and Canada there's almost no heroin around anymore

731
00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 1: in some of these cities now, and we don't really

732
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:14,080
Speaker 1: understand why fentonyl is very present in some cities and

733
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:15,719
Speaker 1: not at all in other cities in the US. And

734
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:18,839
Speaker 1: there is this possibility that fentel, because of the cost

735
00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:22,560
Speaker 1: of production are so incredibly low, and because shipping it

736
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:26,440
Speaker 1: around the world is so easy, if somehow the global

737
00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:29,879
Speaker 1: demand for opium and the heroine it's derived from it

738
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:34,560
Speaker 1: were to plunge dramatically, would that create even a greater

739
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:38,439
Speaker 1: economic crisis in Afghanistan or only in those mountain lands

740
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:40,839
Speaker 1: you were describing where that's about all there is. I mean,

741
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 1: would this be a national crisis if there was a

742
00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:48,160
Speaker 1: sudden transition globally to synthetic opioids and away from opium

743
00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:51,560
Speaker 1: and heroin These conversations around synthetics and that the idea

744
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:56,560
Speaker 1: that consumers just will shift across these different products is

745
00:41:56,560 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 1: is one that is debated, and the fact that some

746
00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:02,759
Speaker 1: consumers prefer the original stuff as opposed to the synthetics

747
00:42:02,840 --> 00:42:06,520
Speaker 1: is one that prevails. I suppose that if you did

748
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:09,680
Speaker 1: have that whole sale shift, it would not be that

749
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:14,839
Speaker 1: dissimilar from if you succeeded in comprehensively eradicating opium at

750
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:17,920
Speaker 1: any point, you know, using coercive methods. If you remove

751
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:21,080
Speaker 1: the demand from it as well, what are those those

752
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:23,479
Speaker 1: farmers to do in the absence of it? And yeah,

753
00:42:23,520 --> 00:42:26,320
Speaker 1: I think that would create a major economic crisis, particularly

754
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:29,640
Speaker 1: in those areas that are highly dependent on this and

755
00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:33,239
Speaker 1: are probably going to become more dependent on opium. It's

756
00:42:33,280 --> 00:42:36,120
Speaker 1: certainly in the short term, in the absence of the

757
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:39,719
Speaker 1: flow of international aid and the absence of a functioning

758
00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:42,840
Speaker 1: government that can provide non farm incomes, and all the

759
00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:46,120
Speaker 1: kind of things that we have seen offer some kind

760
00:42:46,200 --> 00:42:49,240
Speaker 1: of respite. I mean, you know, you have to remember

761
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:53,200
Speaker 1: that when opium poppy was banned in some of these

762
00:42:53,239 --> 00:42:55,960
Speaker 1: areas that I've been visiting and studying for years, where

763
00:42:55,960 --> 00:42:58,080
Speaker 1: there was an imposition of a band, we used to

764
00:42:58,160 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 1: visit the same families each year, year on year, sometimes

765
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:04,880
Speaker 1: every six months for the best part of fourteen years.

766
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:08,799
Speaker 1: And when open poppy was banned, the response would be

767
00:43:09,680 --> 00:43:13,160
Speaker 1: reduce your household consumption of food to the most basic,

768
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:15,840
Speaker 1: remove the meat to once a month and said us

769
00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:18,440
Speaker 1: twice a week, remove the fruit content. You know, so

770
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:21,840
Speaker 1: basically cut back on your on your consumption of quality

771
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 1: food of any sort. Reduce your health expenditure so you're

772
00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:29,000
Speaker 1: no longer going to Pakistan or to a private doctor.

773
00:43:29,520 --> 00:43:33,320
Speaker 1: You're basically using whatever basic service the state can provide,

774
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:36,680
Speaker 1: which is pretty basic in some of these areas. You're

775
00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:40,640
Speaker 1: also subsequently selling off some of your items within the household.

776
00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:43,880
Speaker 1: It might be long term productive assets, including your livestock.

777
00:43:43,920 --> 00:43:45,680
Speaker 1: You're what they would refer to as your dairy cow,

778
00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:48,760
Speaker 1: your milky cow. So again you're reducing the food intake

779
00:43:48,840 --> 00:43:51,840
Speaker 1: for the family. But the other one that was absolutely critical.

780
00:43:52,080 --> 00:43:55,160
Speaker 1: What we saw was people would join the army and

781
00:43:55,200 --> 00:43:58,360
Speaker 1: it was conscription by default. I had one family I

782
00:43:58,400 --> 00:44:02,040
Speaker 1: remember every year a new son would join the army.

783
00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:05,239
Speaker 1: By the time with this this band in Nangaho and

784
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:08,319
Speaker 1: Eastern Afghanistan had taken place. You know, we had four

785
00:44:08,400 --> 00:44:10,920
Speaker 1: sons in the army and they would be sent off

786
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:13,480
Speaker 1: to fight in the South, etcetera. And they didn't want

787
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:16,000
Speaker 1: to be there. If Poppy had continued, they wouldn't have

788
00:44:16,080 --> 00:44:18,799
Speaker 1: done that. Some of them would lose their sons. These

789
00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 1: are the kind of effects that you get. So you're

790
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 1: basically sending someone off to do something dangerous, high risk,

791
00:44:25,040 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 1: and you're stripping back all your expenses so that you've

792
00:44:28,120 --> 00:44:33,680
Speaker 1: got basic health, basic food consumption, engaging in activities and

793
00:44:33,719 --> 00:44:36,040
Speaker 1: work that might prove to be dangerous to your well

794
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:38,640
Speaker 1: being and even your life. And that's what you'd be

795
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:41,719
Speaker 1: looking at if fentonyl did take off, you would be

796
00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:45,200
Speaker 1: looking at those kind of coping strategies as we refer

797
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:48,239
Speaker 1: to them. Yeah, so David, you've got started all this

798
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 1: when the talle Binan were in power in the late nineties,

799
00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:52,520
Speaker 1: and my understanding is you haven't been able to be

800
00:44:52,520 --> 00:44:54,800
Speaker 1: back in the country in recent years because the security

801
00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:58,040
Speaker 1: situation so screwy. But now that the tala Bin are back,

802
00:44:58,200 --> 00:45:00,319
Speaker 1: you think you'll be back in Afghanistan. Son, Well, it's

803
00:45:00,320 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 1: primarily been confid to be honest, that's kept me away.

804
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:05,680
Speaker 1: I had an invitation for lunch only the other day,

805
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:09,040
Speaker 1: so I still live in hope that I will be

806
00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:13,320
Speaker 1: sat down with my good friends and colleagues eating kebabs

807
00:45:13,320 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 1: and net back at work at some point. Well, listen,

808
00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:18,280
Speaker 1: I just want to say. I mean, our audience can't

809
00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:20,400
Speaker 1: see us, but I want to say, you know, not

810
00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:23,359
Speaker 1: just for your expertise, but as one of the few

811
00:45:23,440 --> 00:45:27,840
Speaker 1: other members of that elite club of strikingly handsome, bald

812
00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 1: white guys with the booties who have spent much of

813
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:33,000
Speaker 1: their life working on drugs. I just want to thank

814
00:45:33,040 --> 00:45:36,080
Speaker 1: you for all your incredible work and insights that you provided,

815
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 1: and wish you all the best of luck in your

816
00:45:38,680 --> 00:45:41,920
Speaker 1: return to Afghanistan. So thank you so much for joining us,

817
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:48,840
Speaker 1: very much for the invite. Psychoactive is a production of

818
00:45:48,880 --> 00:45:52,279
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted by me

819
00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:56,520
Speaker 1: Ethan Edelman. It's produced by Katcha Kumkova and Ben Kibrick.

820
00:45:56,920 --> 00:46:00,920
Speaker 1: The executive producers are Dylan Golden, Ari hand Dull, Elizabeth

821
00:46:00,960 --> 00:46:05,239
Speaker 1: Geesus and Darren Aronovski for Protozoa Pictures, Alex Williams and

822
00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:08,520
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick for I Heart Radio, and me Ethan Nadelman.

823
00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:12,320
Speaker 1: Our music is by Ari Belusian and a special thanks

824
00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:16,120
Speaker 1: to a Vivit Brio, Sef Bianca Grimshaw and Robert Beatty.

825
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:20,080
Speaker 1: If you'd like to share your own stories, comments or ideas,

826
00:46:20,480 --> 00:46:23,920
Speaker 1: please leave us a message at eight three three seven

827
00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:31,240
Speaker 1: seven nine sixty. That's one eight three three Psycho zero.

828
00:46:32,160 --> 00:46:35,600
Speaker 1: You can also email us as psychoactive at protozoa dot

829
00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:39,000
Speaker 1: com or find me on Twitter at Ethan Nadelman. And

830
00:46:39,080 --> 00:46:41,239
Speaker 1: if you couldn't keep track of all this, find the

831
00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:48,560
Speaker 1: information in the show notes next week. There are some

832
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:51,319
Speaker 1: studies that show drug overdesk desks have been on a

833
00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:54,759
Speaker 1: study upward trajectory since the nineteen forties and the drug

834
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:57,600
Speaker 1: of choice has just changed, you know. My own view

835
00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:02,520
Speaker 1: is that aggressive pharmaceutical marketing and liberal prescribing did harm

836
00:47:02,560 --> 00:47:04,520
Speaker 1: and the g D is a little hard to put

837
00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:07,719
Speaker 1: back in the bottle. Subscribe to Psycoactive now see it,

838
00:47:07,719 --> 00:47:08,239
Speaker 1: don't miss it.