Two charts that prove the Afghan drug war is a total failure

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Two charts that prove the Afghan drug war is a total failure

8 July 2014

Afghanistan produces 92 percent of the world's opium, fueling both the global heroin trade and the Taliban insurgency. Since 2001, and especially from 2009 to 2013, NATO has made cutting down on this illicit market a major part of its strategy in Afghanistan. The United States alone has spent over seven billion dollars on counter-narcotics efforts since 2002.

For all that effort, only one percent of opium produced in Afghanistan has been seized. And there's been no meaningful dent in production, which is actually higher than it was before 2001. America's drug war in Afghanistan is a total failure.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR), the US government group tasked with auditing the war effort there, put together UN data on drug interdiction in Afghanistan. It found that, from 2008 to 2013, the US only seized 354,712 kilograms of opium — out of the total 33,200,000 kilograms produced. When you chart that, the bars representing opium seized barely show up compared to the total produced:

According to SIGAR, eradication has also been a total failure. From 2008 to 2013, when the US anti-opium campaign hit its apex, the US only managed to eradicate 3.7 percent of the land devoted to poppy cultivation. The total amount of land devoted to poppy cultivation was a third higher in 2013 than in 2008.

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