Friday December 30, 2016
Kabul (BNA) President Ashraf Ghani has ordered all provincial governors to speed up war on production of drugs and has declared national practical plan for this purpose. This plan has been prepared by the MoCN. With its implementation, most of the provinces will be cleared of poppy cultivation and considerable reduction will be taking place in production of narcotics. Because Afghanistan has achieved first position in the world for production of drugs and produces over 80pc of the global drugs. Drugs are the main financial sources of armed insurgents and the main reason behind extension of war in Afghanistan. President Ghani has emphasized that based on law on war on drugs and national practical plan, all primary and secondary units are obliged to launch coordinated serious struggle against this inauspicious phenomenon in order to prevent expansion of insecurity in one hand and Afghanistan be introduced to the world people as a sovereign and drugs free government on the other. The president tasked provincial governors of Helmand, Badghis, Sar-e-pul, Nangarhar, Balkh, Laghman, Nimroz and Kunar provinces to launch serious war against poppy cultivation. Although poppy is cultivated in Afghanistan but it’s changed to opium by foreign imported materials which all these chemicals are imported from Iran and Pakistan. If the world community really wants to fight this issue, first it should reduce global demands to drugs and then study the alternative livelihood of Afghan farmers.
As at present saffron and cumin can be an alternative to poppy. But the world particularly the Afghan government have not launched essential propaganda on cultivation of these two elements. Drugs are that phenomenon that have strongly affected and overshadow domestic and foreign policy of Afghanistan. Due to lack of public awareness, assistance and slight information on saffron, the farmers don’t dare to resort saffron cultivation. The MOCN said that the reason behind no reduction of poppy cultivation are global mafia as well as no arrest of drug traffickers. Despite of consecutive year’s war on drugs and investment of multi-billion dollars on this sector, we see no visible result. Some Afghans believe that the world specially the US has no coordinated strategy in war on drugs and the policy adopted in war on drugs has failed because it was not adaptable with objective situation in Afghanistan.
First, the world community should specify those countries who are involved in drug trafficking and secondly it should strongly fight the global mafia and thirdly they should provide such alternative plantation to Afghan farmers to enable them to meet their normal living expenditures. War on drugs is directly connected with security and implementation of rule of law. Until nationwide reliable security has not been restored in Afghanistan and law has not been implemented evenly on all people, eradication of poppy cultivation and drug production and trafficking is imposable. In one hand war on drugs is conducted and some foreign countries make efforts to speed up insurgency and encourage farmers to plant poppy on the other which is frankly a double game. According to a report of SIGAR, so far over US$7b have been invested on war on drugs with no visible outcome and even this war seems to fail.
Hamidullah Faizi
