Around 92 percent of the world's heroin is produced in Afghanistan and about 40 per cent of it is smuggled to Pakistan through Iran and other routes, a seminar was told on Wednesday.
They were taking part at the seminar on "Drug Production and Trafficking: Political, Economic and Security Implications for the Region" organised by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS).
About the big consumption market of the Afghan drugs which is Europe, Dil Jan Khan, former senior voice president of International Narcotics Control Board Drugs said that their laws are lenient on the consumers. He quoted the example of Switzerland where the government centers gives drugs to addicts arguing to "minimise the damage".
He observed that drug addicts account for about four million which include half a million addicts of heroin, according to a survey. He said that Pakistan had drastically reduced poppy cultivation yet the spillover from Afghanistan has vexed the problem.
Colonel Sultan Amir (retd), former Pakistan Counsel General in Herat, said that poppy growth could only be reduced if there is no demand for it. He said that Afghans only grow poppy but the chemicals for processing it come from abroad.
He suggested five years plan where the poppy would be bought from the growers and stored and then disposed off or used for other purposes while the growers shall be given 50 per cent of the money for the next crop. This way they will expand their agriculture.
Senior Journalist, Imtiaz Gul, observed that the real causes of poppy growing are the lawlessness in the country and the security situation where the agriculture has been devastated by wars. He also said that 86 per cent of the foreign aid to Afghanistan is spent on the security related expenditures. There is no integrated system and lack of central authority in Afghanistan, he added.
Dr Maqbool Ahmad Bhatti, President of International Council for World Affairs, said that the drug production was related to poverty and frustration. He urged that the UN bodies have flaws in their policies regarding drugs reduction as they ignored the core issues of poverty. Out of frustration and poverty people resort to drugs, he added.
But the speaker said that not only poverty but a mindset is at working behind it. He said that heroin is the addiction of middle class and rich people. The seminar concluded that the drug problem has many dimensions: there are needs of defences of morals, spiritual, physical, discretion, family and honour and money against drugs.