$250 million = the amount spent just by the US in FY2010 to counter narcotics in Afghanistan
$100 million = the amount earned annually by the Taliban from narcotics trafficking
304,000 acres = the number of acres devoted to opium in 2009
304,000 acres = the number of acres devoted to opium in 2010
$64 per Kg = the price of opium in 2009
$169 per Kg = the price of opium in 2010
Total production of opium did decline, but mainly because of a disease damaging the poppy crop. The spike in prices makes it likely that the number of acres devoted to the crop will increase in 2011.
Vikash is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Asian Studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY. His main areas of academic interest are (post-) globalization, economic development, and economic freedom, with a regional focus on South Asia
Vikash — have you read the recent work on this topic by Vanda Felbab-Brown? She argues that opium field destruction is bad policy as it impoverishes the local farmers and pushes them towards the insurgents. She calls for interdiction aimed at middlemen; NSS 2010 often calls for the US to interdict various threats. Thus, it is possible that the numbers you reference do not reflect bad news. Felbab-Brown also claims that “successful” destruction of fields would just shift planting to nearby countries — Burma in the best case, where the effects might help strain the military regime, but more likely Pakistan, further causing disorder in Af-Pak.
Rodger, Hi. Thanks for your comments. I agree with Felbab-Brown (and most experts that I've read on this issue) on the last point that successful reduction of the poppy crop from the Golden Crescent will lead to greater production in the Golden Triangle.
As to the idea of targeting “middlemen,” I am a bit more skeptical. Although I was being cheeky in the post, I would certainly concede that there are lagged effects of policies that may take years to realize. However, I tend to think that in the narcotics industry, killing middlemen mainly increases the cost of the product by increasing the cost of doing business. A lucrative trade like heroin has no difficulty in staffing. Disrupting one branch of the network also empowers other (rival) branches. (This is not my area of expertise, so please correct me if I am off base.)
The globalized heroin trade has been a problem in Afghanistan and Pakistan since the sixties (and actually dates back to the colonial era). I think the only real way to dampen (or at least regulate) the effects of the narcotics trade is to build strong states — not an easy scenario in the present. Mainly though, this is a problem for the Europeans to tackle as it impacts their societies more than America's (our drug problems stems from the western hemisphere and the failure to curb domestic consumer demand as far as I can detect). The profits earned by insurgents and anti-government elements from this trade help to fuel their fight, but the US spends so much more than the insurgents that the failure to achieve a decisive victory cannot be reduced to logistics and expenditures.