Pieces of raw opium have become the main unit of currency used in many regions of Afghanistan.The borders remain closed and trade routes disrupted due to the hunt for Al-Qaida. Smuggling or growing drug crops are the only businesses left in most regions of the country. This season a bumper crop is expected.

September in Afghanistan means the end of the monsoon season and the time when opium growers sow their seeds.

Since the 1970s, civil war caused tribal warlords to take up opium cultivation. Both the war and the heroin market arose due to demand by Western markets. The profits offered by the opium business were used to fund military operations.

Addicts are scarce in the opium-growing regions of the country. “We are poor people, we cannot smoke it,” said Ghulam Hazrat, a poppy farmer in Konar province. “The rich people who want a luxurious life, they can smoke it.”

A landowner said “We need the money and they need the drugs. It’s a very good business.” (“Afghanistan: Poppies Bloom in Afghan Fields, Again” Christian Science Monitor 8/21/02)

Eradication efforts by US-sponsored Hamid Karzai’s government have relied largely on farmers being willing to burn their own crops in anticipation of being compensated. The compensation offered was $500 per acre. One acre of poppy plants can earn a farmer an estimated $6,400 according to a recent UN report. (“UN Cites Failure to Uproot Opium” Boston Globe 8/19/02)

“I think we should leave other countries’ drug problems alone and instead focus on our own,” said sophomore Emily Tuey.

“It’s a good idea only if we go in with overwhelming force,” said first-year David Neal-McDaniel. “We should send in everything or send in nothing.”

Like North Carolina, this too was once a land of slaves and aristocrats. The fate of the farmers now lies in what crop their lords have encouraged them to grow.

Last spring, farmers protesting their lack of compensation were silenced with gunshots in three separate incidents that left eight farmers dead and 35 wounded. The farmers claimed that the compensation was inadequate. The money appropriated for their compensation was being stolen by corrupt officials. (“Afghan Farmers Die in Poppy Protest” BBC News 4/8/02)

This planting season, farmers in Afghanistan have a tough choice to make. Plant opium and risk losing everything when they get busted. Plant food crops and risk not being able to sell it if the war has not ended. Plant nothing and face even greater poverty.