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| Where smack grows on trees... Poppy field photo by Paul Kooi, dope bag scans courtesy of Pedro Mateu-Gelabert and Liza Vadnai | | HEROIN'S HOMETOWN - PART 1Peering Down the Brown Rabbit Hole
Our friend Christoph, a reporter in Afghanistan, tells us what it’s like at the source of those little baggies full of brown death that we used to buy from a hole in a brick wall in a building that now houses a Japanese-French fusion bistro...
 he story was that villagers had informed the local drug-eradication unit of a heroin lab in the village of Adam Khor in Badakshan, northeastern Afghanistan. An extremely mountainous area where fertile land is scarce, Badakshan is a place where poppy is cultivated in every valley. It is then harvested and the raw opium, or teryak, is smuggled across the borders with homemade mini-planes, or simply by bribing policemen.
A raid was staged based on the villagers’ information, and several people died when it was carried off. Western officials claimed it was a success. They said that the fact that villagers had informed them of the area’s heroin lab showed that the local resentment over heroin production was growing. But some of us began to wonder... Nearly everyone grows poppy in Badakshan. Why would the villagers want a heroin lab destroyed? A bit of asking around yielded the truth: The warlord who had installed the lab only allowed farmers from his villages to use it. Farmers from the neighboring villages pleaded for access, were repeatedly denied, and finally grew so angry that they burned down the lab and informed the authorities of its existence. Now that the playing field is level, no one smuggles heroin across the border. They all smuggle raw opium instead.
 I have spent several months in Afghanistan over the last few years, talking to poppy farmers, dealers, policemen, Taliban, and foreign diplomats, and they have all told me that the current opium-eradication program is a joke. Opium is Afghanistan’s big business. Last year’s crop of 6,100 tons, enough to produce 610 tons of heroin, was the largest ever in Afghani history. It provided 90 percent of the world’s supply. While US officials claim that opium funds the Taliban, the reality is far more complicated. Opium profits are shared among government officials, affiliated warlords and, yes, the Taliban. Most poppy farmers I talked to paid bribes to the local police to escape the regular eradication campaigns. This is the case not only in Badakshan in the north, but as well in Kunar in the east and Helmand down south. Sometimes, however, police begin to ask for more than farmers can afford. A farmer in the Balagh district close to Mazar-i-Sharif told me, “Local officials get about 2,000 afghanis [$40] per jerib [approximately half a square meter] of land as a bribe. Those who can’t pay have their crops destroyed. We are gathering the harvest as fast as we can so that they don’t hold us up for money again.”
“The richer farmers can pay bribes to avoid eradication, while the poorer ones can’t,” said Abdul Manan, head of the government’s counter-narcotics department in Helmand.
The poppy farmers who can’t afford to bribe the police often call on the Taliban for protection. These farmers fight side-by-side with the Taliban against the police and the Afghan National Army (ANA). A farmer in Helmand said to me of the collaboration, “I am happy about it—if everyone is busy fighting, I can grow my poppy in peace.”
And a Taliban spokesman in the Nadali district said, “This is a good opportunity for us to win local support. We can continue our jihad, and local people can keep their lands. Our Taliban are ready to go anywhere in Helmand to help people fight the eradication campaign.”
TO BE CONTINUED:
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