A Fateful Harvest - part 8 - A global problem

This illicit drug threatens the whole world. What is the solution: reducing the supply or the demand? What will it take to reduce the threat?

While illegal opium is a threat within Afghanistan, it's also a threat to the world community. And solutions must extend beyond Afghanistan's borders. Reducing worldwide demand is one solution.

Adam Holloway:
If you eradicated every opium poppy in Afghanistan, you would still have drugs on the streets of my constituency, and you know, in small-town America.
What we have to do is we have to focus on dealing with demand for drugs, and not just seeing it as a question on the supply-side

Thomas Schweich:
'If you look at any success story in the world on fighting drugs, you have to reduce demand in the countries that have demand, while simultaneously cutting off supply.'

Meanwhile, as the insurgency continues in the country, efforts to curb the drug trade have yet to produce results.
A UN assessment for 2008 found opium cultivation at virtually the same levels as the record-breaking harvest in 2007. Welcome news for traffickers in the country.

Trafficker:
'We are small drug dealers and we are not against the government.'
Trafficker:
'Frankly , we think that the drug problem will linger for a long time and as long as there's a demand for drugs then we'll be in business.'

There's agreement Afghanistan's illegal drug trade slows the country's progress toward becoming a stable, economically independent democracy.
But there's not agreement on how best to deal with the poppy problem -- or how long it will take.

Antonio Maria Costa:
'Putting an end to the opium cultivation in Afghanistan is going to take a very long time. Perhaps 20 years; perhaps 25 years. But we have to start and we are starting now.'

Barnet Rubin:
It took almost 30 years for Afghanistan to get into the condition that it is now. It will take a long time to rebuild the institutions, the trust among people and the basic functionings of the economy.'

Thomas Schweich:
'I think it's totally wrong to say that we are losing Afghanistan. There's a risk of that. But people who know Afghanistan can see there is a lot of hope in that country too. And what we need is perseverance, political will, we need to recognize that it's going to take some time to do this and then we can do it.'