Wheroin

The BBC has a fascinating report on the disappearance of huge quantities of heroin in the wilds of Afghanistan. One of the aspects of the “war on terror” that has often gone unremarked upon is the degree to which the “success” of rebuilding Afghanistan depends upon growing huge quantities of poppies for the production of heroin. The drugs that they’re making are being funneled into Western Europe and the United States. What’s really interesting about the situation is that Afghanistan is currently producing almost three times as much opium as needed to satisfy the world’s known demand for heroin – but the streets of the Western world aren’t being flooded with unheard of amounts of heroin. Why?

The article quotes speculation that the heroin is being stockpiled inside Afghanistan for distribution into new markets – Russia, Iran and China – that are unwilling to admit to the size of their heroin problem. It underscores the degree to which terrorism is just one subset of a much larger and more interdependent series of world crime problems. You can’t deal with terrorism and drugs as separate issues – this whole underground world is linked together.