Russia's Drug Czar on Afghanistan's Drug Production
by
Brooke E. Leonard

Speaking at The Nixon Center on Thursday, September 24, Russia’s top counter-narcotics official suggested that the United States has a responsibility for solving Afghanistan’s drug-production problem and urged the country to return to a policy of eradication of poppy crops, calling reasons for the recent shift away from this method “misguided.”

Viktor Ivanov, Director of Russia’s Federal Service for the Control of Narcotics, linked Afghanistan’s narcotics problem to the United States’ military operation there, noting that “the harvest of the opium poppy increased almost fortyfold in Afghanistan since U.S. and NATO troops entered that country in 2001.”  The instability created by the war led to what Ivanov called the “perfect conditions for the rise of a global narco-state,” citing ongoing geopolitical tensions depriving the population of its ability to make a living based on traditional agriculture as the chief cause of its drug production. 

According to Ivanov, Russia is the “main victim” of Afghanistan’s drug trafficking, with ninety percent of its addicts using Afghan opiates.  There is a growing number of young users in the country, and Afghanistan’s stockpile of heroin – enough to produce over one trillion doses – threatens generations to come.  But though Russia may feel the brunt of the effects of the drug trade, it “carries a fundamental threat to the whole world,” including the United States.  Heroin profits – about 100 billion dollars each year – support corruption and organized crime, create political destabilization, destroy young democracies (such as Afghanistan itself), and fund terrorism. 

The United States and its partners have assumed responsibility for safeguarding the Afghan people, and as a result, said Ivanov, they must lead the way in fighting the country’s narcotics problem that threatens peace and security throughout the world.  But Ivanov disagreed with the new strategy proposed under Richard Holbrooke, U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who recently dismissed the eradication policy of the Bush administration as “a waste of money” that forced Afghans into the hands of the Taliban.  The new administration has instead called for a shift to a policy of creating economic alternatives for farmers who cultivate opium poppy.  Using Columbia as an example, Ivanov stressed that spraying these crops with herbicides from the air was a much more effective method than past attempts in Afghanistan to destroy them manually or with tractors.  He warned that the economic competition the United States is trying to introduce in harvesting legal crops rather than opium “will never be successful,” as legal crops require a much greater amount of security, infrastructure, and effort with significantly lower profits. 

Despite the two countries’ divergence of opinion over the best method for tackling Afghanistan’s narcotics production, Ivanov still sees cooperation between Russia and the United States as a necessity.  He suggested that Russians had much to learn from the decades of experience and numerous achievements in the war against drugs in America, such as the development of drug courts where offenders have the option of treatment over punishment.  In return, as one participant noted, Russia can share the valuable experience it gained in developing economic alternatives to the drug trade during the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the late 1970s and 1980s.  Ivanov reminded the audience the Soviets successfully implemented almost 150 large-scale projects during that time, including building irrigation systems and power plants, and acknowledged that Russia today could be more actively engaged in the economic reconstruction of the country.  In sharing their experiences and strategies, Ivanov expressed hope that cooperation between the two countries could not only serve as a positive step towards “resetting” relations between Russia and the United States, but could also help by encouraging the international community to treat Afghanistan’s drug production and trafficking as a threat to global peace and security and to use the instruments of international law to combat the debilitating problem.   

Brooke E. Leonard is the assistant director of The Nixon Center.