To Stem the Flow of Illicit Drugs from Afghanistan, Follow the Money - Center For American Progress

Corruption poses an existential challenge to Afghanistan’s stability, as well as its political and economic development. Under the leadership of President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, there is an opportunity for the United States to capitalize on the newly expressed political will of Afghanistan’s elected leaders to curb corruption. Afghanistan’s national unity government has prioritized the fight against the epidemic of graft plaguing the country, and this fight is intricately tied to the production and flow of drugs.

Although the United States has invested $8 billion—as of December 30, 2014—in counternarcotics efforts, Afghanistan still leads the world in opium production, and its farmers are growing more opium than ever before. The sale of opium and cannabis—another drug of which Afghanistan is a leading cultivator—on the international market produces huge sums of cash that must be laundered, or made clean, so it can appear legitimate. This parallel market and the illicit financial transactions that sustain it have a debilitating impact on the rule of law in Afghanistan; undermine the legitimacy of government institutions; and ultimately impede the ability of the Afghan government to provide basic services to its citizens. Because no bank outside of Afghanistan denominates in the Afghani—the country’s national currency—the state’s drug trade runs on the flow of international currencies such as U.S. dollars, euros, and British pounds. Moreover, the weak oversight of anti-money laundering controls coupled with the systemic corruption plaguing Afghan institutions serves to compound the narcotics conundrum.

The Afghan drug trade poses an immediate and urgent threat to U.S. interests in Afghanistan and to the integrity of the Afghan state itself. Greater efforts must be made to stem the flow of money derived from the narcotics trade in order to significantly reduce Afghanistan’s narcotics production and curb corruption.  Read More at To Stem the Flow of Illicit Drugs 

To Stem the Flow of Illicit Drugs from Afghanistan, Follow the Money