Afghanistan Is Being Driven Back Into the Deadly Embrace of Dope, Inc.

Oct. 10, 2021 (EIRNS)—The United States, the U.K., and international financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, continue to apply sanctions and freezing of funds against Afghanistan which are not only producing horrendous conditions of famine, COVID and overall poverty in the Afghan population, but are also driving the country back into the deadly embrace of the “Dope, Inc.” international drug-trafficking apparatus, which is run by the leading City of London and Wall Street banks. This is the clear picture that emerges from a lengthy AP article, which otherwise focuses on the Taliban’s crackdown on drug addicts in Kabul.

Regarding the Taliban’s policy towards the large number of opium and heroin addicts in the country—Afghanistan is by far the world’s largest producer of poppy plants for opium and heroin—AP reported on Oct. 7:

“At nightfall, the battle-hardened fighters-turned-policemen scour the capital’s drug-ravaged underworld. Below Kabul’s bustling city bridges, amid piles of garbage and streams of filthy water, hundreds of homeless men addicted to heroin and methamphetamines are rounded up, beaten and forcibly taken to treatment centers.... Here, a 45-day treatment program begins, said Dr. Wahedullah Koshan, the head psychiatrist. They will undergo withdrawal with only some medical care to alleviate discomfort and pain. Koshan conceded the hospital lacks the alternative opioids, buprenorphine and methadone, typically used to treat heroin addiction. His staff have not been paid since July, but he said the Health Ministry promised salaries would be forthcoming.”

The article continues: “ ‘This is just the beginning, later we will go after the farmers, and we will punish them according to (Islamic) Shariah law,’ said lead patrol officer Qari Ghafoor.” AP explains:

“But the Taliban’s war on drugs is complicated, as the country faces the prospect of economic collapse and imminent humanitarian catastrophe.... A liquidity crisis has set in. Public wages are months in arrears and drought has exacerbated food shortages and disease. Winter is weeks away. Without foreign funds, government revenues rely on customs and taxation.

“The illicit opium trade is intertwined with Afghanistan’s economy and its turmoil. Poppy growers are part of an important rural constituency for the Taliban, and most rely on the harvest to make ends meet. During the insurgency years, the Taliban profited from the trade by taxing traffickers, a practice applied on a wide variety of industries in the areas under their control....

“But the Taliban also implemented the only largely successful ban on opium production, between 2000-2001, before the U.S. invasion. Successive governments have failed to do the same....

“Mohammed Kabir, a 30-year-old poppy farmer from Uruzgan province, checked himself into the hospital two weeks ago. He said demand from traffickers remains high, and come harvest time in November, selling opium is his only means to make a living.”