Alcohol and Drugs History Society

Afghanistan, Russia, USA/NATO and opium

In the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, Eric Walberg argues that for the Russian people opium addiction was the lasting result of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Drugs added new pain to a people already deep into alcohol addiction. After the Soviets withdrew, the Taliban eliminated heroin production. Under the recent USA/NATO hegemony drug production boomed again despite the nominal opposition of the Western forces. By the way, the Afghans themselves prefer hashish, a form of cannabis or marijuana. For more, see here.

China cracks down on drugs

China has decided to crack down on drugs such as opium from Afghanistan. An estimated 1.2 million Chinese use banned drugs, mostly heroin. For more, see here.

Switching from growing opium to cannabis

The governor of the northern Afghan province of Balkh boasts of his success in ending the growing of opium there, but the farmers have switched to cannabis, potentially a more profitable drug crop. For more, see here.

"Balkh shirak" instead of opium

In the northern Afghan province of Balkh hashish (marijuana) has replaced opium as a cash crop. A local farmer called opium golden but marijuana at least silver. The local variety is known as Balkh shirak. For more, see here.

Opium: from the golden triangle to the golden crescent

Three decades ago 70% of the world's opium was grown in the so-called golden triangle, upland districts of Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand. Now, partly because of pressure from China where recently much of the heroin has been sold, the golden triangle is responsible for no more than 5%. Today opium is mostly (92% of the world's production) grown in the golden crescent, southern Afghanistan, with the total world production perhaps doubled. For more, see here.

Massive increase in opium grown in Afghanistan

According to the UN, the amount of opium grown in Afghanistan increased 57% in 2006 over 2005. It is estimated that the amount grown in 2007 is on the way to increase another 15% over that in 2006. Afghanistan accounts for 95% of the world's opium crop. For more, see here.

Training Afghans in drug enforcement

Belated training of Afghans in drug enforcement now includes Colombian officers. For more, see here.

Opium for the people?

Tony Blair's British administration is considering supporting legalization of the Afghanistan opium crop.  Find that story here.  Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department has issued a policy statement against legalization.  Read that story here.  (Thanks to Dave Trippel for the links). 

Illegal alcohol problem for American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq

According to the New York Times, illegal alcohol has helped fuel violent crimes by American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. For more, see here.

Afghan poppy production a record high in 2006

Poppy production reached a record high in Afghanistan in 2006, up 25% from the previous year. Afghanistan produces 90% of the world's poppies for opium. For more, see here.

Drugs in Afghanistan

A recent report concludes that Afghanistan is still losing the war on drugs.  Find the full story here.

UK official proposes legalising heroin

As Afghanistan’s record opium poppy crop floods the European cities with the drug, the risk of higher numbers of heroin overdoses has increased in the region, the UN warned on Thursday. Europe has traditionally been the biggest market for Afghan opiates and opium cultivation in Afghanistan increased by 59% this year.

Meanwhile, a top British police officer has called for heroin to be prescribed to addicts to cut the link between drugs and crime. Howard Roberts, deputy chief constable of Nottinghamshire police, said that making the class A drug available under supervision would save money in the long run.

Find the full story here.

Opium in Afghanistan

The (London) Times, 29 Nov. 06, features an article by Bronwen Maddox on opium in southern Afghanistan. For more,see here.

Opium as a business in Afghanistan

According to Channel News 4 (UK), 14 nov. 2006, nearly three million people or about 12% of the total population of Afghanistan are involved in some way in the business of opium.

Authorities say over 15 tons of drugs seized in Afghanistan

Afghan authorities seized over 16 tons of drugs in the past 10 days in operations targeting smugglers in seven provinces, Afghanistan's top counter-narcotics official said. Read more here.

Moosehead sending beer to Canadian troops

Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan will soon be able to battle the heat of the southern Afghan desert with some beer from the largest Canadian-owned brewery.

Moosehead Breweries, based in Saint John, N.B., is sending more than 1,700 cans of its Moosehead Lager to Canadian troops stationed in Kandahar, after some of them specifically requested the suds.

Canoe reports.

US drug policy in Afganistan (thesis)

Gerald Keller, "United States' drug policy in Afghanistan, 2001--2003" (M.A. thesis,
State University of New York Empire State College, 2006)

Heroin from Afghanistan

Alastair Leithead reports for the May 22 BBC News website on the state of heroin production in Afghanistan. Ninety percent of Britain's heroin comes from Afghanistan.

The US and Afghan opium

Pamela Constable reports for the May 6 Washington Post (page A11) on the US effort to dissuade Afghan farmers from growing poppies. Link here.

"People will never make as much money with other crops as they will with poppy," said Beth Dunford, director of the alternative livelihoods program for USAID. "You also have to add a significant risk to growing poppies, through eradication, troop presence and law enforcement, or they won't change."

Afghanistan and Opium

For the April 11 Globe and Mail, Jeffrey Simpson summarizes the role of opium in Afghanistan today:

No discussion of Afghanistan, including the House of Commons debate last night on Canada's military contribution, can skirt the obvious. Afghanistan's economy, such as it is, depends on opium. And the drug trade, in turn, is intertwined with the central government, regional warlords, local insurgencies and Taliban forces hiding in Pakistan.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 52 per cent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product in 2005 came from the "drug economy." Afghanistan, continued the UN report, supplies a staggering 87 per cent of the world's opium.

Full report here.

Cheap, pure heroin set to flood Britain, say police

A bumper crop of opium poppies in Afghanistan has raised fears that an influx of cheap and dangerously pure heroin could flood the UK within the next few months. The Independent reports.

Opium-licensing scheme mooted

Rather than eradicating opium crops in Afghanistan, the growing of opium should be regulated to manufacture medical drugs like morphine and codeine, which developing countries have limited access to, said an international think tank in Vienna on Wednesday.

Read more.

Afghanistan to drug lords: kindly spend your earnings on nation-building industries. Many thanks

Afghanistan will encourage its powerful drug lords to invest their illegally earned profits in the war-shattered country, according to the governor of the nation’s top opium-growing region. MSNBC reports.

Where have all the poppies gone?

Afghan counternarcotics agents have started a major opium eradication campaign in the heartland of the world's largest producer of illicit drugs. The New York Times reports.

Afghan opium trade funding terror groups

Afghanistan's lucrative narcotics trade is helping fund terrorist attacks in the struggling country, warns a top-secret Canadian threat assessment.

CTV News reports.

Poppy issue to be taken up with Karzai

Pakistan is expected to raise the issue of bumper harvests of poppy and the thriving drug trade in Afghanistan amounting to £2.7 billion a year during the 3-day official visit of President Hamid Karzai to Islamabad beginning on February 15.

Islamabad News reports.

Poppy power

This month, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on Afghanistan that could pave the way for a new and more open-minded approach to counter-narcotics strategies worldwide. In fact, the resolution calls on the participants at a conference of donors, to take place in London at the end of January, “to take into consideration the proposal of licensed production of opium for medical purposes, as already granted to a number of countries.”

Pakistan's Daily Times reports.

'Where have all the flowers gone?'

Afghanistan's anti-narcotics wing has destroyed more than 30 opium processing laboratories and large quantities of stored drugs over the weekend, an official statement said Monday. In the operation over the past few days the Afghan Special Narcotics Force (ASNF) also destroyed laboratory equipment and tools in the eastern province of Nangarhar, the statement said. "In raids conducted across the province, the ASNF destroyed over 30 opium processing laboratories, several large drugs stores, as well as significant quantities of laboratory equipment and tools," the statement said. New Kerala reports.

Afghanistan: addicted to heroin

For much of 2005, the news out of Iraq has overshadowed what has been going on in Afghanistan, where 18,000 U.S. troops are still fighting and dying along the Pakistan border in battles with the Taliban, al Qaeda and other insurgents.

The rest of Afghanistan, at least compared to Iraq, appears relatively peaceful. But the country is facing another threat to its stability - its growing addiction the production and trafficking of heroin, which is controlled by some of the most powerful people in the country.

Afghanistan is now the world's largest exporter of heroin, and the opium used to produce it, supplying 87 percent of the world market. And it is creating an infrastructure of crime and corruption that threatens the government of President Hamid Karzai.

Read more at the Pak Tribune.

Daughters pay the price in poppy war

In the thirsty hills of Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, debt is a way of life. Every autumn, sharecroppers take loans from drug traffickers to plant their poppy crops. After every harvest, they repay them in poppies, which are turned into heroin.

This year, an eradication effort has sharply cut Nangarhar's poppy cultivation, but the sharecroppers' debts remain. Now, some of the region's poorest farmers say they are being forced to repay traffickers with the only thing they have left: their daughters. The International Herald Tribune reports.

Kabul has 'brief chance' to turn opium into medicine

The Gulf Times reports (26 Sept 2005) that Afghanistan only has small window of opportunity to divert its billion-dollar production of opium away from heroin and towards the manufacture of legal painkillers, the head of a drugs think-tank says. But the fragile country needs to act fast, with drugs cartels poised to take root, Emmanuel Reinert, executive director of the Paris-based The Senlis Council, said. “I think there is one window of opportunity and this window will be closed in a year or so,” he said. Read more here.

Opium yield drops only slightly in Afghanistan

The Washingston Post reports (30 August 2005) that opium production in Afghanistan has dropped by just 2 percent this year, despite a major clampdown on poppy farmers that sharply reduced the amount of land used to grow opium poppies, the U.N. anti-drug chief said Monday. Find the full story here.

'Osama planned to poison US-bound cocaine'

Ireland Online reports (26 July 2005) that Osama bin Laden allegedly tried to buy large amounts of cocaine, spike it with poison and sell it in the United States. Find the full story here.

G8 to step up drugs fight in Afghanistan

The Hindustan Times reports (17 June 2005) that the world's eight major industrialized countries have agreed to step up funding to fight the drugs trade in Afghanistan, British Home Secretary Charles Clarke said, acknowledging that present efforts were heavily inadequate. "Everyone agreed that more resources were necessary," Clarke said at a meeting of interior and justice ministers in the northern city of Sheffield. Without offering any specific figures, he said countries were committed "to the principle of putting more resources in." He said the amount would be "significant." Find the full story here.

U.S. Memo Faults Afghan Leader on Heroin Fight

The New York Times reports (22 May 2005) that US officials warned this month that poppy eradication has been ineffective in part because President Hamid Karzai "has been unwilling to assert strong leadership." Find the full story here.

Afghanistan launches first survey of domestic drug abuse

The Star Online reports (15 May 2005) that Afghanistan, the world's largest producer of opium and heroin, launched the first comprehensive survey of drug abuse among its own population. Surveyors will carry out 3,000 interviews with addicts and others and draw on data such as prison and hospital records to gauge a problem exacerbated by the return of refugees from neighboring Pakistan and Iran, the Ministry of Counternarcotics said. The assessment, carried out with help from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, will be completed by June and the results published in September, the ministry said in a statement.

Afghanistan not ready to legalize opium production

The Christian Science Monitor reports (16 May 2005) that as the international community searches high and low to find alternative livelihoods for poppy farmers, one answer may be growing right under their noses. According to a nonpartisan think tank based in Paris, there is a worldwide shortage of morphine and codeine, two medicines produced from poppies. Emmanuel Reinert, the executive director of the Senlis Council, estimates the global need to be 10,000 metric tons of opium based on per capita differences in consumption between Europe and poorer regions of the world. Afghanistan currently produces 4,000 metric tons of opium illegally. US and Afghan officials express doubt, though, that Afghanistan can achieve a high enough level of security to make this idea practical. Find the full story here.

Afghan Opium Harvest Fuels Political, Social Unease

VOA News reports (3 May 2005) from Islamabad on opium's impact inside Afghanistan and across the region. Find the full story here.

Roadside bomb kills three Afghan anti-drug police

The Jerusalem Post reports (1 May 2005) that a remote-controlled bomb tore through a jeep carrying Afghan anti-drug police in eastern Afghanistan, killing the drivers and two of the passengers and injuring two more, an official has said. Find the full story here.

Afghan drug barons not an easy prey

Pakistan's Daily Times reports (1 May 2005) from Kabul that the fact that Afghanistan’s police had no role in the recent capture of drug baron Bashir Noorzai in the United States highlights how far the world’s largest opium producer still has to go in its fight against narcotics, experts say. Noorzai was arrested in the United States and charged with conspiring to import more than 50 million dollars worth of heroin into the United States and other countries. The indictment said Noorzai was closely linked to the Taliban regime that US forces helped depose in late 2001 for sheltering members of the Al-Qaeda network behind the September 11 attacks just a few weeks earlier. Noorzai’s network provided explosives, weaponry and manpower to the Taliban in exchange for the protection of its opium crops and heroin infrastructure and drug smuggling routes. Find the full story here.

Afghanistan's president declares 'holy war' on heroin

MSNBC News reports (25 April 2005) that Afghan police and soldiers are pressing ahead with a plan to eradicate the world's largest opium crop, moving from field to field in southern Kandahar province with cutters and large sticks as angry farmers look on. Similar operations are under way in other parts of the country, though it will be some time until officials get a clear sense of how much of this year's crop is destroyed. Find the full story here.

British troops to target Afghan opium trade

The Sunday Times reports (24 April 2005) that British troops are to confront drug traffickers and terrorists in Afghanistan after taking over international peacekeeping efforts next year. Many will head for Taliban heartlands in the south of the country, where American forces hunting Osama Bin Laden suffer regular casualties. No peacekeeping forces have ventured there before. The British will be based in the lawless southwestern province of Helmand, a stronghold of the Taliban and centre of the opium trade that has long been a no-go area for aid agencies. Find the full story here.

Teacher or drug cop?

News 24 reports (21 April 2005) from Kabul on Malalai Badahari, who by day wears dark glasses, combat fatigues and wields an AK-47 as a counter-narcotics cop, but at dusk slips her veil back on her head and goes back to her home life, where all her neighbours think she is a teacher. Find the full story here.

Afghan province bans smoking in public places

Reuters reports (17 April 2005) that Afghanistan's western Herat province has banned smoking in all government buildings, becoming the first region in the country to join an international effort against smoking. Find the full story here.

Pentagon Sees Aggressive Antidrug Effort in Afghanistan

The New York Times reports (25 March 2005) that the US military will significantly increase its role in halting the production and sale of poppies, opium and heroin in Afghanistan. Find the full story here.

Opium Farming Slows in Afghanistan

The New York Times reports (27 March 2005) from Kabul that Afghan farmers are growing less opium this year because of a government ban and fear that their crops will be destroyed in an internationally sponsored crackdown, according to a U.N. report released Sunday. Find the full story here.

Heroin Cheap and Easy in Remote Afghan North

Kerala Next reports (10 March 2005) that in war-battered Afghanistan, finding heroin - a derivative of opium, the country's main cash crop - is both cheap and easy. Find the full story here.

Ulema pledge to wage Jihad against narcotics

Pakistan Link reports (21 March 2005) from Peshawar that Ulema from all over the province pledged to wage "Jihad" against the abuse and trafficking of drugs at a seminar hosted in Pakistan by the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) with the collaboration of the Narcotics Affairs Section of the US Embassy. Find the full report here.

9 sheep, goats forced to swallow 84 pounds of opium

AZ Central reports (14 March 2005) from Tehran that police in southeastern Iran found 84 pounds of opium hidden in the stomach of nine sheep and goats, Iran's official IRNA news agency said. The animals had apparently been forced to swallow the narcotics by drug traffickers bringing the product over from neighboring Afghanistan en route to western Europe. Drug smugglers who swallow packets of cocaine or heroin in an attempt to avoid detection are often referred to as drug "mules."

Afghanistan: Mixed reaction to calls for opium legalisation

IRIN News.org reports (15 March 2005) from Kabul that local officials and NGOs are divided on the idea of legalising opium cultivation for medical purposes in Afghanistan, currently the world’s top producer of the illicit crop. Find the full story here.

World coca production down, but opium soars

New Kerala reports (4 March 2005) that a decline in estimated coca leaf production was tempered by a near-double increase in opium cultivation in 2004. Find the full story here.

Macedonia is neither a major producer nor a major transit narcotics point

The Macedonian Information Agency reports (5 March 2005) that the 2004 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report of the US State Department has concluded that Macedonia is neither a major producer nor a major transit point for illicit drugs. The report reads, however, that the country lies along the so-called "Balkan route," which is used frequently by traffickers to ship heroin from Afghanistan, and marijuana and hashish from Albania, to the Western European consumer market. Find the full story here.

Afghanistan About to Become a Drug State

Arab News reports (3 March 2005) that opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan increased further in 2004, posing a threat to the country’s stability, and has reared its head in Pakistan after a long absence, the International Narcotics Control Board said here yesterday. Find the full story here.

UN warns of new form of smokable heroin

MSNBC News reported on 3 March 2004 that drug traffickers are targeting middle-class Americans with high-purity heroin that users can smoke rather than inject. Find the full story here.

India's opium poppy comes under global glare

The Deccan Herald reports (3 March 2005) that illicit cultivation of the opium poppy on the outskirts of Bangalore is causing concern both in India and abroad, according to officials in New Delhi and at the Vienna-based International Narcotics Control Board (INCB). The seeds of the opium poppy are popular as a spice supplement throughout south India, but its illicit cultivation could tempt growers to tap the opium gum and use it for the production of heroin. Find the full story here.

Britain is the new heroin capital of Europe

Abul Taher reported for the Times Online (27 February 2005) that Britain has become the heroin capital of Europe with the largest number of seizures and one of the highest levels of abuse. The UK accounts for most of the heroin seizures in Europe and, after Luxembourg and Portugal, has the most heroin users. Taher goes on to discuss other findings in the recent report by the International Narcotics Control Board, a body founded by the UN. Find the full story here. Reuters reports on the same story here.

Afghan heroin crop threatens to flood UK

For The Independent, Jason Bennetto reports (2 March 2005) that Britain is facing a massive influx of heroin because Afghanistan has produced its largest crop of opium since the overthrow of the Taliban. Find the full story here. The Guardian reports on the same story here.

Poppies return to Pakistan

News24.com reports (3 March 2005) from Islamabad that opium poppy production has resurfaced in Pakistan because security forces have been busy tackling militants linked to the al-Qaeda network along the Afghan border. Pakistan was declared a poppy-free country in 2000, but farmers began cultivating the heroin-producing flowers again in 2002. Find the full story here. China Daily reports on the same story here. The PakTribune.com reports on the story here.

Illicit drug sales booming online

BBC News reports (2 March 2005) that the worldwide trade in illegal drugs sold over the internet has surged, according to the UN's drug watchdog. Dangerous drugs are being sold without prescription in a virtual marketplace that is difficult to control, says the International Narcotics Control Board. In its annual report, it says that 90% of online drugs sales take place without a medical prescription. The most common sales are of mind-altering substances such as amphetamines. Find the full story here. ABC News reports on the same story here.

Heroin shippers target Tajikistan

BBC News reported on 3 March 2004 that the United Nations annual report on the illegal drug trade has recorded a huge rise in the heroin trade through Central Asia, especially Tajikistan. Find the full story here.

Tajikistan's battle with addiction

BBC News reported in June 2000 that after years of civil war, the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan is now facing a new and growing problem - drug addiction. Tajikistan is one of the Central Asian states in the front line against drug traffickers operating from Afghanistan, the world's largest producer of opium. Find the full story here.

Tajikistan at crossroads of the drug trade

For the Detroit Free Press, Mark McDonald reported on 4 May 2004 that Afghan narco-barons had begun stamping their brand names on the 2.2-pound bags of heroin they smuggle out of central Asia to buyers in Moscow, London, New York and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Sacks of high-quality Afghan heroin seized in Tajikistan carried the trademarks Super Power and 555. Some of the sacks, which were hidden inside foil-lined containers of instant cappuccino mix, even included the addresses of the labs in Afghanistan where the heroin had been refined. Drug-control experts say the number of processing facilities in Afghanistan has exploded over the last year, and a Western-led campaign against opium-growing and heroin laboratories has been a wholesale failure. The trade and huge sums of money involved threaten to undermine vulnerable bordering nations, such as Tajikistan. Find the full story here.

Afghans Give Opium to Frozen Kids

CBS News.com reports from Kabul (19 February 2005) that disease fueled by freezing weather has killed more than 120 Afghan children, with desperate parents feeding their children opium in a bid to alleviate their suffering. Find the full story here.

Ecstasy Trials for Combat Stress

David Adam reports for The Guardian (17 February 2005) that American soldiers traumatised by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are to be offered the drug ecstasy to help free them of flashbacks and recurring nightmares. Find the full story here.

How Afghan Poppies Become Heroin

In a special series that examines the threat of opium to Afghanistan and the region, IrinNews.org describes the process by which the opium poppy, a plant first introduced to Afghanistan in the 13th century by Genghis Khan, is harvested, boiled, dried, and turned into heroin.  The full story can be found here.

Afghanistan's Opium

Gulnoza Saidazimova, in a report for Radio Free Europe carried by the Asia Times Online, reports on the current state of Afghanistan's opium production and its influence on Central Asian countries.

No Aerial Spraying of Afghanistan

Apparently the LA Times broke this story on January 22nd, but I can't find it. Here is a report from a Pakistani newspaper on the same subject.

Alcohol, Opium, the Indian National Congress and the Raj

Link to an abstract for "Drunk On Empire: Alcohol, Opium, the Indian National Congress and the Raj: 1891-1900," a paper by Marc Jason Gilbert (North Georgia College and State University), delivered at the Strathclyde University, Glasgow "Drugs and Empires" conference of April 2003. Full abstract copied into the extended body.

Drunk On Empire: Alcohol, Opium, the Indian National Congress and the Raj: 1891-1900

Marc Jason Gilbert (North Georgia College and State University).

During the late nineteenth century, the rise of mass politics rendered the British Indian Empire open to the whims of British Temperance leaders who wished to abolish alcohol and opium consumption and its attendant revenue stream in India. They did so knowing that this step would have catastrophic fiscal effects on the subcontinent, which was then dependent on its alcohol and opium excise revenues due to the contemporaneous decline in the world value of the silver-based rupee (the land revenue was entirely consumed by the costs of the British Army in Indian and the so-called Home Charges, also due to the fall in the value of the silver rupee).   Despite pressure from the home government, the Government of India successfully blunted this campaign.  John F. Richards has recently contended that opium consumption in India did not follow the deleterious patterns of its use in China or Britain and that, in defending its continued sale on the subcontinent, the Government of India was, in effect,  defending Indian both interests and well-established folkways.  Richards’ describes this position—an alliance between the Raj and its clients-- as unusual and ironic, but in fact this stand was more typical of late metropolitan and Indian colonial relations than has been heretofore acknowledged.

The true shape of those relations can best be illustrated by the fact that Richards, though well intentioned, incorrectly differentiates between opium, which was not abused by Indians, and alcohol, which was.  His presumption, a correct one in theory, was that the Government of India could resist Temperance leaders in Britain by making allies of Indians who favored opium use, but that they could not do so as effectively in regard to alcohol because its consumption was condemned by Indians themselves.  In fact, the Government of India and the Indian National Congress saw in the Temperance movement’s efforts to abolish alcohol just as serious a threat insofar as it threatened not only state revenues, but also important clients of the Indian National Congress who were deeply involved with alcohol sales at the local level. The Government of India and its nationalist rivals could thus also form an alliance even on this subject. Their cause was strengthened by the Home government’s awareness that these complexities were mirrored in the United States, whose alcohol revenue policy mimicked that of the government of India.

This alliance successfully stymied those in Britain who wished to limit alcohol use as well as opium consumption, a battle which paralleled that over opium earlier described by both Richards and myself.  The true irony is that mass politics at the imperial metropole in the age of high imperialism was so exploitative of the colonial order that its officials abroad were forced to defend the interests of local colonized peoples in order to preserve not only the minimum relationship between the rulers and the rule that allowed their imperial order to function, but also to defend the imperial order against itself.  This pattern was repeated during the joint resistance of the officials of Raj and the Indian National Congress to British imposed Indian factory legislation and even, in what truly must rank as the best kept secret in Indo-British relations, British Indian foreign policy in the period under study.  For too long lingering imperial pride in the West and well-earned anti-colonial sentiment on the subcontinent has blinded scholars to the complexities of imperial affairs at the climax of the Raj.  It is thus only fitting that this ideologically induced haze be lifted by an exploration of the alliance between the Raj’s self-imposed guardians and its worst nationalist critics that was formed to preserve the revenue sustained by the commodities that were the source of the more productive delusions of Coleridge and Poe. 

Today, U. S. State Department officials in Afghanistan are turning a blind eye to the passage of tons of opium that pass through Afghan territory.  They do so because the revenue derived from the trade helps sustain an Afghan-American relationship that the United States hopes will assist its war against terrorism.  If this illicit trade was made known to the evangelical Christians who form a crucial base of support for the Bush administration, and they demanded an end to the trade, President Bush, albeit with some reluctance, would order its curtailment.  The State Department might well protest that such a step would be in no one’s interest at this time, that opium/heroin use in the United States would not decline as a result of the intended action, that opium harms no one in Afghanistan and that an end to this revenue would destroy the keystone of current American foreign policy by undermining the anti-terrorist Afghan regime. They would no doubt be joined in this appeal by the Karzai government, which, while recognizing as the Taliban did that a narco-state is evil, no doubt believes it is better than no Afghan state at all.  Should such a scenario develop, it would trace a pattern of narco-colonialism a number of late nineteenth century British Secretaries of State for India, Indian Viceroys, Indian Civil Service officers and Indian National Congress leaders would find all too familiar. That few scholars are as yet familiar with these patterns is a “delicate condition” that will change as our understanding of the relationship between metropolitan and colonial state approaches to drugs and narcotics matures.