 This is about an Afghan farmer and his family who is living on the edge of starvation like many people in Afghanistan his only income that he earns does come from crops and He borrows two thousand dollars from a local trafficker so that he can plant his next Harvest for the crops and of course he chooses Poppy because Poppy is very resistant both to disease and drought and Poppy is by far the most profit profitable crop That you can grow in this part of the world and where there's a huge demand And he does that Chooses Poppy that not only he can Support his family but also pay back the debt and the interest that's being charged on and so shortly before the harvest a government eradication team comes with an I guess equally good intention you can say and eradicates his Entire crop in one go leaving the farmer not only was nothing but also was a burden of Debt that he owes to the local strongman and so what does he do he flees? His family and he flees the region where he is but he's found and caught and by the way This is a true story that was reported in the news He's caught is put in front of a local tribal Council that rules that the farmer must compensate the local strongman and given that he has no money It is being ruled that he has to compensate the local strongman with his own daughter a nine-year-old girl That gets married off to the trafficker and I'm sure all of you have heard about the term poppy brides This is only one story But I think it shows what the impact of current policies on the development agenda is and I'd like to quote from a UN odc and World Bank report that writes about the strategy of Vacation I quote is felt most by the weakest and the poorest actors involved in the opium economy Poor world households who lack political support are unable to pay prides and cannot otherwise protect themselves before 1979 Afghanistan produced small amounts of opium for local consumption traditional opium smoking Which is less harmful than injecting heroin by great margin and maybe some small regional trade But very small then after the war started Cultivation was increased and was used as a means for financing the war against the Soviet Union And then later it also was used for financing civil war. So I Think it clearly made things worse, but how it started was in this kind of situation where without governance without a functioning state that can control the countryside and also conflict and Displacement and that's what's led to Afghanistan's. That's the background what you do about it now. It's a much more complicated Situation, but I think we should be clear and I think other countries often are that and in the ungoverned spaces where There's no alternatives in terms of livelihoods or and where the government is weak and there are strong men let's say who benefit from the Cultivation that's how it develops. I Think it's estimated that there's something in the region of four million men women and children who are engaged in the cultivation of illicit narcotic crops And what we do know is that drug crop cultivation is actually a sign of poverty rather than a sign of wealth And it's traditionally in communities whether it's Afghanistan, Bolivia, Colombia, Burma Which is obviously Myanmar which is a very important region for us currently with the transition It's where we have this absence of citizenship where we have an absence of security that narcotic crop Cultivation becomes a a key driver of stability and livelihoods So when you go into these communities and you destroy this crop cultivation without Effective citizenship models or states citizenship models being created This has devastating effects on livelihoods and it has devastating effects on development and security first How? It is not easy in the minds of the of the of the people who who are Designing the project the question is very easy We substitute the coca for example in Bolivia with coffee because in the global market the coffee is With the high prices, but who controls the high prices in the of the coffee is the New York birth You know then is that the question? No Till today, we didn't give the possibility for the Pesant organizations or the farmers To show us the way of develop they want we show them the way they love of develop we want That's the problem some of the financing of the Taliban comes from opium production, but I they are not dependent on it The estimates are very rough, but maybe 50 to a hundred million dollars a year So you compare to the international community spending of maybe a hundred billion dollars a year in Afghanistan It's it's pretty tiny and it's the the Taliban also have other sources and I very much object to this kind of Linking the Taliban to the drug industry and sort of using a way to demonize both and the idea somehow that if you Take harsh actions against drugs. You will get rid of the Taliban. No, absolutely not Certainly the dependence of the Afghan government on funds from opium is higher through Corruption patronage bribery and so I think I think you need a balanced approach the the money is Influencing whoever is in power in Afghanistan in some places. It's the government in some places It's the Taliban in some places. It's other strong local strongmen and so So I think it's actually better to to keep a clear mind to separate the Taliban issues from the drug industry And the Taliban actually would love if the international community engaged in heavy eradication or something because the farmers would be very Upset and they would join the Taliban in Colombia, you know six million of hectares were sprayed with the glyphosato and the the Colombian plan will spend till this year one and a half million billion dollars in spraying and We are now Insisting in scientific research about the consequences of the glyphosato spraying We know Empirically the problems are causing the The spraying in Colombia in the Amazonian forest With the people with the persons animals fauna It is a matter of a long study and I hope Sincerely that the international community will punish Monsanto because they are they are really criminals in this question They are profiting with the with the superion of million of people But I think what that also speaks to is the vested interests of the kind of military defense Conglomerations isn't it which is signed so embedded in US foreign policy in US power And I think the key thing really which also goes back to what William said before is that even if we Remove the narcotics, it's not going to remove the key sources of funding for insurgents and rebel groups And now does it address the drivers of that insurgency or conflict in the first place? So even if we take out the cocaine even if we take out opium What we've seen traditionally with insurgent groups is that they will find other means of funding their insurgency So whether this is through kidnapping whether it's through money laundering whether it's through engagement in in other forms of illicit economies It simply has no net effect on our ability to reduce conflict and build more peaceful societies Because we're not addressing that fundamental cause of grievance So the big danger that we have is that we have this elision of the war on drugs and the war on terror Which is really what we've seen in places like Columbia and we've seen in Afghanistan And this is a this is from to my mind really catastrophic merger of security and defense and development policies Which is simply not addressing how we actually deal with these conflicts in the first place simply to eradicate the narcotics Deals with nothing in terms of these insurgencies or how they're funded or as I said how we build these peaceful societies Because the Afghans are very you know, they have a lot of communications both informal They have more cell phones now than a long time in history radio television and they know what's going on and they see that Eradication is going after farmers, but there have been some major cases of direct Allegations and evidence let's say of higher level peoples associated with the government linked with drugs And they are not touched and there is actually a famous case where one of the Afghan Airlines was was blacklisted by the US military for Suspected involvement in transporting drugs and the president of Afghanistan himself got so upset about that that he prevailed on the US to withdraw that allegation and so so what it means, I think is the farmers are the ones who don't have all the political protection and they are They are vulnerable and if so if you crack down on law enforcement you get the small farmers and other small actors and of course you still don't touch the Larger actors who in a country like Afghanistan are politically very Important, I think the kind of whole neoliberal economic reform agenda of the 1990s Also created a wonderful mechanism for the laundering of money because the sale of state assets the privatization Particularly in places like perhaps Mexico and in the Balkans has actually created these wonderful opportunities for laundering cash So there is does seem to be a correlation between the laundering of money and neoliberal economic policy agendas and when that's in a post-conflict context Then it creates a very unhealthy and unfavorable mix the second largest producer of opiates in the world after Afghanistan is a country named Australia and Australia produces large amounts of opiates which are entirely legal Licensed regulated and they go to the pharmaceutical companies now those opiates go into the US And are consumed and many case the abuse of legal opiates is a big problem. So so I'm saying the mix of the legal and illegal For for the poor countries, do you think licensing would be a solution for Afghanistan? No, I think because what Afghanistan now produces 90% of the illicit opiates, let's say about half of total opiates From only 10% of Afghanistan's land. So what would happen if you license that amount of production? They would produce they would be happy to do that and then they would also produce a lot of illegal It's very hard to control the leakages when you have two different markets But my point of view is from a point of view of some of the corporations and things you're mentioning something is entirely legal and leads to Legal opiates being heavily abused in countries like the US lots of people use abuse painkillers and addicted to them and It's completely legal and and the farmers in Australia are treat. They're not criminalized. They're treated well It goes all through the value chain, but the end result is a problem And yet the Afghans then who produce it and also have end abuses at the end Become criminalized and I think it's a an interesting dichotomy and suggest some of the contradictions that are going here, but The short answer to your question is I think If there's a global reform then there would be opportunities for licensing I'm more doubtful if if the global regime doesn't change Then and for one thing Australia would not accept Afghanistan to be a licensed producer just like agriculture Subsidies in the EU and the US why would they let a somebody else come into that market? And there are these examples of success and it's basically long-term rural development It's not like we are saying one magic crop or one substitution It's a comprehensive rural development approach and it will take 10 to 20 years And it will solve the problem like it didn't largely in Thailand and some other countries But it won't affect the global so countries that have a strong enough governance and you know take on the issue There is a way forward on the production side, but it will deal with it at the country level not at the global level because then it just goes to the The other country that has the right conditions, which is insecurity and poor governance and deep poverty and they will produce Opium in the case of Afghanistan so so again I think you're you're pushed into thinking about can you make broader changes or else it will just be Rotating among different countries let one quick point on the on the transit and transfer side This is big a very big problem. You know when you have anti drug measures They change the transit routes each time they change the transit routes. You leave addicts there Because because addiction grows along the transit routes And so if you keep imposing law enforcement, maybe you move the transit somewhere else And then you would create more addict elsewhere, and it just goes on forever and creates Long-standing problems of drug use the other aspects of this which is really important and just developing what William said about Thailand You know 15 20 years. It was the Monarch It was King boomie ball who was head of this program and that was continuity and consistency The challenge that we have today is that the UNODC and also the development community itself with its Millennium Development Goals Works to very tight timetables and schedules which are very narrow in focus and very short termist So you can have countries such as Laos PDR which was actually making some progress in terms of long-term strategy for the reduction of drug crop cultivation But then suddenly Laos felt that it really had to kind of come on board with the UNODC and in regional organizations Such as the ACN and therefore it kind of went through this very horrid process cultivation reductions forced eradication So neither the development community or the current drug policy community actually looks towards a long term Everything is in a very narrow compressed time frame, which really is completely irrelevant And not very helpful in terms of trying to address the issue of drug crop cultivation. Thank you I'm Peter Shariff from the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union And I have two questions and one is about the banking system just a few weeks after the Financial crisis started in 2008 Mr. Antonio Maria Costa the head of the UN agency on drugs and crime said that Several banks were saved virtually saved by the liquid cash coming from the black market Do you think is it is it true or is it an exaggeration? My second question is about Afghanistan and Russia I Attended the Commission on narcotic drugs in Vienna last year and it seemed that Russia has great ambitions in Afghanistan Like Victor Ivanov the head of the anti-narcotic agency made a speech and he said that After NATO is moving out from Afghanistan. They try to take over the role of US and NATO operations and They have they have this rainbow plans to eradicate Corrupts in Afghanistan. So what do you think bill? How how how serious is the threat that that Russia will play a greater role in Afghanistan? I hope that the Russians would have learned the lessons from their occupation and so I so and I also Question whether they have the strength of political will to do too much damage in Afghanistan So that would be my first answer that I I don't think I think they're trying to bluster and They're also trying to put more pressure on others to do their dirty work But I I would be doubtful if if the Russian influence in any way replaces The size of the NATO and the US involvement. I would say that 120 years ago The United States used narco diplomacy And counter-narcotics as a tool of foreign policy and I would say that Russia is probably doing exactly the same thing today I don't believe that drug policy has anything to do with drugs at all I think drug policy is all to do with foreign policy and defense policy and security policy So I'm not really surprised given Russian ambitions that Russia is actually using the war on drugs as a new vehicle for its For its international diplomatic and perceived security efforts on banking again I'm I'm not the most knowledgeable, but you know 10 years ago when I was in the United States There were scandals then about the US banking system being used to launder money from Mexico This isn't a new story and the failures of the first world banking sector particularly after the liberalization of the financial sector To be used as a tool for money laundering is is an old story So I would say that the UN odc is slightly delayed in that That interpretation, but of course the Western banks are fully culpable if not more so It's it's very convincing for us to focus on problems of cultivation when I would argue that the real problem actually lies in the The Western financial systems It takes a focus off there if we just focus on the problems of the Afghan cultivating farmers. I was just wondering I Was intrigued by this discussion and also by the Short movie. I was just a bit puzzled because I don't deny or I don't question the ultimate finding that Irradication was not very productive But the argumentation was not very let's say scientific because obviously everything depends on the counterfactual What would have happened without for instance eradication strategies wouldn't have the market even more exploded so to speak So as I said, it's not it's not necessarily questioning the finding that eradication didn't work but my question would be actually what would be kind of For policy people be a desirable kind of involvement of Academic research. Well, I think if we did not eradicate We would have more cultivation and that would bring down the cost of the end product itself So actually eradication has the counter-intuitive and counterfactual Impacts of actually increasing the prices and therefore further incentivizing people to come into the narcotic drug market So we all I think we already know what the counterfactuals are and we've had the counterfactuals since the end of the Second World War when really The kind of war on drugs was escalated in terms of evidence based on where does academia come in? I think that we already have substantial evidence in terms of the impacts of Countenarkotics activities. I think the challenge is that we don't articulate that evidence in a way that either the development community Or the international diplomatic community can engage with it in a way that can actually affect policy change If there is anywhere where I think it would be very useful to have for the research I think it would be in terms of longitudinal studies Which again goes back to my point that the problem is countenarkotics policies very short-termist I think we need studies which look at you know 15-20 years impact of what a countenarkotic strategy actually does we William and I were at a conference recently in Sausage Where we had a colleague over from the United States who was talking about a Mexican community that he'd been working with He showed us photographs of the children in this community 10 15 years ago And he said I can tell you now these children are narco traffickers For example when you look at the shifts that we've seen in public policy around for example in the UK where I'm from We've just legalized gay marriage. What was it that allowed that big shift in public policy? How do you shift public policy debates which are informed by morality? Which is what the drugs debate is all about and so I think we just need to understand with what are the drivers of public policy change Rather than worrying about bringing any any more empirical evidence to the table There they didn't go in for fumigation But they did do manual eradication and also the most effective things they did was actually just banning poppy And I mean the Taliban at one point banned it all through the country and then after the international Intervention it's been banned in certain provinces at certain times quite effectively in the short run but so you have these policies imposed and over the long run you have no real decline it seems that the the poppy cultivation and especially the production is determined largely by price by by yields by weather factors and things like that so so last year Production went down and it was because there was a cold snap in the in the key time of the season So I think if you looked at Afghanistan the evidence is pretty clear that compared to eradication and and bans did not have Significant impact compared to these other factors the weather the price Start with a major Has anybody done some simulations and studies What the implications would be on the supply side on the economies of the supply side shifting away from from the drug production into other areas Any studies that demonstrate Comprehensive I mean there's a series of you know random very very specific studies But I don't think there has been this kind of comprehensive pulling together of all of the information to track whether we have the same kind of Generic impacts as far as I know that hasn't been done But I'm happy to stand corrected if anybody knows of any universalized studies And as I think Some of the policy reform advocates quite explicitly recognized this just like nothing else will solve all problems The whole licensing and regulation approach also won't solve all problems And if you look at the abuse of legal opiates now, you can see some of the problems that come up But you know I think on particular countries it would be possible It'd be an interesting area to work the feeling on Afghanistan would be that if it's a completely legalized and regulated regime Afghanistan might not produce any opium which would have some Economic costs, but I would argue probably more than offset by the benefits of not having such a major Criminal activity. I know criminals would get into other activities, but I don't think they could be quite so lucrative Please stay tuned on the websites of the open society foundations global drug policy program And also at the CEU School of Public Policy for the next event, which I believe will happen in April and then we will talk about the role of the international drug control system That's that's actually the detail We all should focus when talking about this issue. So thank you very much for your attention and Please have a glass of wine or juice