Well known for being one of the most impoverished and dangerous countries in the world, Afghanistan has suffered through many tragic events leading to its current state of turmoil. For decades, it has been the battleground for countless wars resulting in a corrupted and disheveled country. This has led to Afghanistan being dependent on the cultivation of opium and distribution of heroin as a source of economic "stimulus." With "opium and drug production and trafficking accounting for "more than a third" of the nations income, Afghanistan has become reliant on the drug trade to provide jobs and to fund the economy (Maguet and Majeet, 2010, p. 119). This leads to the question, what triggered Afghanistan to be one of the world's greatest opium supplier and how are they able to continue to as the major world provider? With billions of dollars being put towards security against opium cultivation, the lack of governance, the farmers' motives, and the economic incentives keeps Afghanistan at the top of opium market.
Opium Production Boom
Beginning with the Soviet invasion in the 1980s, Afghanistan went through a decade of conflict with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics leaving them in a state of recession. The war essentially halted their economic growth and development leading to a crippled government and workforce that has continued on to this day. With the loss and displacement of much of their institutions, homes, and citizens, the country was basically left with nothing. Consequently, the majority of the population became jobless and homeless. This is where the production of opium and heroin comes into the picture, as it was seen as an opportunity for the common person to make a living. Although poppy cultivation was traditi...
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...a century, Afghanistan has suffered conflict after conflict, leading it to be one of the poorest countries in the world. Citizens of Afghanistan had to go through extreme measures to provide for themselves and their families, resulting in the participation of the illicit industry of poppy cultivation and heroin production. Due to lacking a source of income, many farmers took this as a chance to earn money as they did not have much repercussions to fear from the government. Economic wise, supplying opium to other countries has contributed a lot to Afghanistan's "wealth," but in doing so, it also helped the Taliban and warlords of Afghanistan gain a large sum of money to fund for their battles. With opium output being at its highest in recent years, similar strategies the Taliban has used need to be implemented again or Afghanistan's opium output will keep expanding.
In countries of poverty, lacking of security is a long-lasting common problem. Because some of the poor countries have corrupt government, and some of them might be in a tense situation which wars will happen at anytime. Laos, a Southeast Asian country, shares a border with China. In Laos, smuggling drugs is very popular, because of lacking of security. Germinating the seeds of drugs is easier in the country, since less people are in charge of public security. Since Laos is one of east Asia’s poorest countries, people are eager to get wealthy. By smuggling drugs, it is easier for people to earn a lot of money. With the access to drugs effortlessly, young people are easily addicted to drugs. Since young people do not know how to control themselves, using drugs becomes a serious
...ied latex form from the opium poppy seed pod? Traditionally the unripe pod is slit open and the sap seeps out and dries on the outer surface of the pod. The resulting yellow-brown latex, which is scraped off of the pod and contains varying, amounts of alkaloids such as morphine and codeine. Which is the base for a lot of pharmaceutical supplies due to that? Afghanistan could be the capital base of medicine in the world if they led the way towards progress and let themselves be globalized by foreign countries.
In the early 1950’s in Southeast Asia, the CIA organized the Nationalist Chinese army to start a war against Communist China. This Chinese army became the opium distributors of the “Golden Triangle” (parts of Burma, Thailand and Laos). The “Golden Triangle” has the most abundance of opium and heroin in the world. In order to smuggle drugs, the CIA’s main airline, Air America, flew drugs all over Southeast Asia. (Robbins 154)
Where did this drug come from and what makes it different from any other drug that is on the market? Heroin's origins go back long before Christ was a bleep on the radar. It goes back to 1200 B.C. Or the Bronze Age. At that time how ever heroin would be known as its chemically altered state of the poppy seeds. Even at that time however the ancient peoples of that time knew that if the poppy seeds juice were collected and dried. the extract that was left behind could make a effective painkiller. This would later be named opium. There were small incidents of it appearing in Europe, for instance it was used by the gladiators in the Roman Colosseum. But as a whole it would take more then a millennium for opium to travel from the Middle East to the Europe. This only occurred do to crusades. In just a few hundred after that is went from a rarely used painkiller to a liquid that was said to cure all aliments and would even lead to the most humiliating defeat China Empire. In the 1803 opium became dwarfed by its new brother morphine which is named in honor of the Greek god Morpheus who is the god of dreams. Morphine is an extract of opium and is ruffly 10 times the strength of its counter part. After Morphine creation it was put to used almost at once to assist battle field victims. This was a mistake however, because this refined does of opium is also 10 times more addicting then it was in its original form. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers would retur...
Heroin was originally synthesized in 1874 by a man named C.R Alder Wright. Created as a solution to opium, a drug that had plagued many American households. It was originally produced for medical purposes evidently becoming highly addictive. Heroin “... was originally marketed as a non-addictive substance” (“History of Addiction”) which inevitably increased its popularity. It became especially popular in places of poverty. Heroin became a solution to struggle. So common it was almost as if heroin was a prescribed medicine for hardship. Known as “[a] treatment of many illnesses and pain” (“A brief history of addiction”) but later revealed that it caused more harm than good. Being so easily accessible it became immensely common among musicians.
Concerned authorities have focused essentially on criminalization and punishment, to find remedies to the ever-increasing prevalent drug problem. In the name of drug reducing policies, authorities endorse more corrective and expensive drug control methods and officials approve stricter new drug war policies, violating numerous human rights. Regardless of or perhaps because of these efforts, UN agencies estimate the annual revenue generated by the illegal drug industry at $US400 billion, or the equivalent of roughly eight per cent of total international trade (Riley 1998). This trade has increased organized/unorganized crime, corrupted authorities and police officials, raised violence, disrupted economic markets, increased risk of diseases an...
Children of Conflict: Afghanistan In the crowded city of Kabul, there is a growing population of about six million children who drop out of school to work and support their families. These children over work themselves every day to earn 10 cents per plastic bag, running between cars after pedestrians. Girls disguise themselves as boys so they would be able to go and sell plastic bags and earn a few Afghanis to get some bread to feed the family. The United Nations estimates that there are about fifty-thousand street children in Kabul alone.
.... Weak economies and high poverty rates haven’t been much assistance in preventing drug trafficking either. People have become more susceptible to making risks in order to find ways to support their families and drug networks are always looking for more people to distribute their drugs around the world. Because of drug trafficking, there are constant civil wars going on between the drug corporations, law enforcement, and citizens. This has become a common theme all throughout the world. Drug trafficking has only became worse and worse each and every day, and it is going to continue to be a problem for quite some time.
When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan on December 1979, the goal was to help Afghan communist forces set up a communist government. The Soviet Union felt Afghanistan had key resources and a foothold in the Middle East to spread communist ideas. The result would be a war that the Soviet Union wishes it never got involved in and likened to their “Vietnam War”, meaning winning a number of battles but not the war like what happened to the U.S. in Vietnam. The background of the war, outcome of the war, and impact on the United States are key to understanding the Soviet-Afghan War.
Canada has played a vital role in international relations for the majority of its 144 year history since the signing of Confederation in 1867. Canada first participated in World War I, then World War II in 1939-1945. Following World War II, Canada was also involved in the Korean War. Canada has been primarily a peacekeeping nation. There are many questions people ask when a high income country goes to help a lower income nation such as Afghanistan. What are Canada’s motives for helping out Afghanistan? Who will benefit from Canada going to war in Afghanistan? These are some of the questions many people have. While Canada has many domestic problems of its own such as homelessness, poverty and increasing national debt, why should Canada get involved with a problem that is across the globe? Are the costs of going to war out weight the political benefits? Modernity, modernization theory and gender stratification are some key concepts that are related to Canada going to war in Afghanistan.
“HIV/AIDS in Afghanistan.” THE WORLD BANK GROUP, 10 July 2012. Web. 01 Apr. 2014. .
Afghanistan since its beginning has been a place of conflict, despair, and at times lost hope. It has been taken advantage of and lost its sense of identity, which has had a direct effect on its people, and there own sense of what justice truly is.
Tse H. (n.d), A Focused and Targeted Expansion of NATO and ISAF Involvement in Afghanistan Counter narcotics Operations pdf, pp 22 [Retrieved on: 10/05/2014]
Afghanistan is like a time capsule. Many people farm for subsistence, and few are able to read or write. Afghans have been compared to Spartans in that they are a martial people who have been at war for thousands of years. The rough terrain in which they live lends itself to long periods of resistance. Time and time again they have been able to push away would be conquerors. The current war in Afghanistan stands in contrast to previous wars because its purpose is not one of conquest for land or for the exploitation of resources. The purpose of the current war in Afghanistan is to win over the Afghan people and to help them grow ideologically to assimilate into an ever more technologically advanced global environment.
In the past ten years the Afghan Government has been dealing with a number of issues that have caused problems for the country, problems such as illegal drug trade, terrorism and violence. But nowadays they are fighting a problem that has long existed between people, and quite recently has taken a whole new aspect to it. Ethnic conflict is the destructive factor that has caused problems between people for generations, often leading to fights, outbreak of violence and grudge between different ethnicities.