Primary Sources

Afghan Opium Trade

I suggest reading pretty much everything that Paul Watson of the LA Times writes, including this piece on the drug trade in Afghanistan:

Kunduz, Afghanistan - Like a frustrated hunter, the head of the local anti-drug squad keeps snapshots of the ones who got away.

One photo shows a prisoner wearing a flat, round pakol hat, standing in front of 10 pounds of opium packaged in plastic bags laid out on a table. Lt. Nyamatullah Nyamat took the picture on the February day he arrested the suspect. Hours later, the man was freed.

The stocky, plain-spoken cop glumly tossed another photo onto a desk in his basement office as if playing a losing hand of cards. In this one, a man in a white pillbox cap is handcuffed to a police officer and standing next to 62 pounds of opium. A local judge sentenced him to 10 years in prison. A higher court ordered his release.

One of Nyamat’s biggest catches, arrested with 114 pounds of heroin, a derivative of opium, hadn’t even appeared in court when the local prosecutor let him go in late March.

Nyamat said that was normal in Kunduz, a hub on one of the world’s busiest drug-smuggling routes.