The illegal drug market causes damage in many developing nations, but there are two countries with major drug booms: Afghanistan and Myanmar. Both countries have a long history of being ravaged by endless conflicts. Amid great confusion, the opium market has bloomed. In Afghanistan, many farmers carry massive debts from the drug traffickers after receiving their help during the start-up period. Unfortunately, most end up never being able to pay the money back as government raids often destroy the crops that were promised to the drug dealers as payment. If such unplanned obstacles appear, many farmers are trapped between two extreme solutions. They either give up their family to the drug dealers for collateral, or they have to flee their land. Both options are very dangerous, and many find themselves taken as hostages or killed. The government intervention of directly destroying the opium fields has turned out to be highly ineffective—farmers encounter desperate troubles that can only be solved through extreme means. The illegal drugs also help give power to militant groups such as the Taliban. They control the opium market and continue to strengthen from its profit. While the fields are getting destroyed, there are new fields created to make up the loss and the efforts of the government only victimize the poor. Therefore, the Afghan government is being ineffective in solving the problem.
In Myanmar, the situation is not so different. Opium farming is considered necessary to increase incomes for the poor farmers. Because of ongoing civil wars that have taken away other compensatory options, farmers have turned to opium farming for a living. Due to the increasing demand from neighboring China, the farmers have more incentive to produce the plants for sale. However, there has been a rise in opium-related health problems in the country. As the government has launched laws against opium production in order to stop the abuse of drugs, it has become difficult for people to obtain pure opium. In a pinch, people have been consuming opium in the form of injections, which has led to the recent rise in the spread of HIV and other diseases through the shared needle uses.
However harmful and evil this industry may seem, it feeds many people’s hunger. According to the latest report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the rate of drug cultivation and use has been rising. In 2013 poppy cultivation in Myanmar rose by 13 percent on the previous year, to 57,800 hectares (143,000 acres). The combination of more cultivation and higher yields has resulted in a more than 25 percent rise in opium production in Myanmar since 2012.
No matter how necessary the production of opium may be for making a living, the damages are high. The massive production of opium not only damages the lives of farmers, but also the lives of the people addicted to the drug. The damage will continue as long as the high demand in the market remains unregulated. What could be the solution that can help both the suppliers and addicted consumers?
One idea is the possible legalization of drugs—not to encourage people to become drug addicts, but to drive the severity of drug problems down. Hypothetically, if a government legalizes certain products, then the prices usually decrease because there is no need to go to underground sources to obtain products.
I think the reason why the cost of illegal drugs are so high is because the government made them illegal. Instead of spending money on border security and hunting down transporters, governments could focus on prevention efforts and financial support of subsistence farmers—subsidies, tax reductions, provisions of specific money for a fixed amount of time—to allow them to switch into normal farming. The legalization of drugs to lower their prices and prevent people from committing crimes related to their purchase. I am fully aware that this legalization could have some negative effects such as moral decline and addictions, however, the current market of illegal drugs reflect how unfairly wealth is distributed and how the poor is exposed to more dangers and miseries.
The addiction rates in both Myanmar and Afghanistan are already high enough to make this a social problem. When the products and policies become legal, the money saved on enforcement could be spent on the improvement of prevention methods, making it legal for people to seek active help to escape addiction and return back to the workforce. Many addicts are not offered help as their drug use marks them as criminals, eliminating ways to improve themselves and allowing the problem to persist. It would be hard for governments to reach these audiences as civil wars are making access to these populations difficult. Then, non-governmental organizations or international support groups could help the farmers and addicted consumers to improve themselves. If the addiction rates are high enough to be a great problem, shouldn’t that be acknowledged lawfully to provide appropriate care? Drugs will never be eliminated permanently. They will always be a problem, but we can try to reduce the severity of it. We need to acknowledge it before solving it.
I am aware that drug problems are not simple situations, but I think the important step in solving them is to break the economies of them. There are not many examples of such attempts found around the world—my argument may seem unreasonable and unrealistic—but perhaps our world needs unconventional thinking to solve unconventional problems.
Hae Rin is a freshman majoring in history. Do you agree with her take on this? Please send all comments to opinion@dailycardinal.com
