America’s Failed Opium War against Afghanistan, October 2001. 21 Years Later: A Second Ban on Opium Cultivation

Part I

[This article was originally published by Global Research. You can read it here.]

Introduction. The Historical Context

The First Opium War was led in October 2001 by US-NATO.

The October 7, 2001 invasion had nothing to do with “combating Al Qaeda terrorists” allegedly led by Osama bin Laden.

The Taliban government –in collaboration with the United Nations– had imposed a successful ban on poppy cultivation in 2000-2001. There was also a religious objective on the part of the Taliban.

The success of Afghanistan’s 2000 drug eradication program under the Taliban had been acknowledged at the October 2001 session of the UN General Assembly (which took place barely a few days after the beginning of the 2001 bombing raids). No other UNODC member country was able to implement a comparable program:

“Turning first to drug control, I had expected to concentrate my remarks on the implications of the Taliban’s ban on opium poppy cultivation in areas under their control… We now have the results of our annual ground survey of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan. This year’s production [2001] is around 185 tons. This is down from the 3300 tons last year [2000], a decrease of over 94 per cent. Compared to the record harvest of 4700 tons two years ago, the decrease is well over 97 per cent.

Any decrease in illicit cultivation is welcomed, especially in cases like this when no displacement, locally or in other countries, took place to weaken the achievement”

(Remarks on behalf of UNODC Executive Director at the UN General Assembly, Oct 2001, emphasis added )

Opium production had declined by more than 90 per cent in 2001 to the detriment of fraudulent financial interests, not to mention the subsidiary role of “organized crime.”

The invasion of Afghanistan was in large part intent upon restoring the multibillion dollar illegal trade in opioids and heroin.

See graph below. Opium Poppy cultivation: 1994-2017 (UNODOC).

The key strategic objective of the October 2001 war against Afghanistan was to restore the opium trade following the Taliban government’s successful 2000-2001 drug eradication program which led to a 94% collapse in opium production.

In the course of 19 years following the US-NATO October 2001 invasion, there was a surge in Afghan opium production.

In turn the number of heroin addicts in the US has increased dramatically. Is there a relationship?

There were 189,000 heroin users in the US in 2001, before the US-NATO invasion of Afghanistan. By 2016 that number went up to 4,500,000 (2.5 million heroin addicts and 2 million casual users).

In 2020, at the height of the COVID crisis, deaths from opioids and drug addiction increased threefold.

It’s Big Money for Big Pharma.

The illegal trade in heroin and opioids is a multibillion dollar business supported by powerful financial interests, which requires a steady and secure commodity flow.

One of the “unspoken” objectives of the October 7, 2001 war against Afghanistan was to restore the U.S.-sponsored drug trade to its historical levels and exert direct control over the drug routes. (See graph above)

This war was undertaken by U.S-NATO on behalf of the financial elites and organized crime. It was an illegal war, a criminal undertaking.

Immediately following the October 2001 invasion, opium markets were restored to their historical levels.

Opium prices spiraled upwards.

By early 2002, the opium price (in dollars/kg) was almost 10 times higher than in 2000.

In 2001, under the Taliban opiate production stood at 185 tons, increasing to 3400 tons in 2002 under the US sponsored puppet regime of President Hamid Karzai.

In fact the surge in opium cultivation production coincided with the onslaught of the US-led military operation (October 2001) and the downfall of the Taliban regime.

Michel Chossudovsky and James Corbett. The October 2001 Invasion of Afghanistan

21 Years Later. The Second Ban on Opium Production

As we recall the First Ban in 2000-2001 led to the collapse of more than 90% of opioid production in 2000-2001, prior to the US-NATO invasion of Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. (See graph above)

A Second Ban of Opium was initiated by the Taliban in April 2022. Confirmed by a report of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) (5 November 2023), opium production declined once again by 95%.

“Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan plunged by an estimated 95 per cent following a drug ban imposed by the de facto authorities in April 2022, according to a new research brief from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

UN officials noted that the near-total contraction of the opiate economy is expected to have far-reaching consequences and highlighted the urgent need for enhanced assistance for rural communities, accompanied by alternative development support to build an opium-free future for the people of Afghanistan.

Opium cultivation fell across all parts of the country, from 233,000 hectares to just 10,800 hectares in 2023. The decrease has led to a corresponding 95 per cent drop in the supply of opium, from 6,200 tons in 2022 to just 333 tons in 2023.

The sharp reduction has had immediate humanitarian consequences for many vulnerable rural communities who relied on income from cultivating opium. Farmers’ income from selling the 2023 opium harvest to traders fell by more than 92 per cent from an estimated US$1,360 million for the 2022 harvest to US$110 million in 2023.

“This presents a real opportunity to build towards long-term results against the illicit opium market and the damage it causes both locally and globally,” said Ghada Waly, Executive Director of UNODC. “At the same time, there are important consequences and risks that need to be addressed for an outcome that is ultimately positive and sustainable, especially for the people of Afghanistan.” (emphasis added)

The impact on the global trade in heroin which is estimated to be in excess of 100 billion dollars has created havoc.

Heroin is a multibillion dollar trade at the level of the entire planet. What are the broader implications?

Will this second 2022 attempt by the Taliban government to restrict the drug trade lead to U.S. military intervention with a view to restoring the multibillion dollar trade in heroin?

In a September 2024 report by the Crisis Group:

The Taliban have been blamed for undermining Afghanistan’s “illegal narcotics industry” to the detriment of Afghanistan’s peasantry: “rounding up drug users, destroying opium poppy and cannabis fields, … their initiative strikes at the backbone of Afghanistan’s informal economy and the livelihoods of the rural poor.”

“Why does it matter? The ban has drastically reduced cultivation, but Afghan-produced drugs are still hitting the global market as dealers continue selling stockpiles and some farmers resist the ban. The Taliban’s crackdown has devastated the economic outlook for farmers and rural labourers with few other employment options. Women have been particularly affected.”

In other words, America’s “humanitarian option” is to restore opium cultivation on behalf of the Afghan farmers as outlined by The Crisis Group.

“Big Money”

The Second Ban on Opiods has largely affected the West’s multibillion dollar narcotics trade (controlled by the financial elites).

According to The Global Financial Integrity report entitled “Transnational Crime and the Developing World,” the estimated retail value of the global illicit drug market was between US$426 and US$652 billion in 2014. (This includes all sources of narcotics, e.g. Latin America)

Other reports —which do not address the retail value nor the issue of money laundering– estimate that the trade in narcotics was of the order of US$300-400 billion, which is in excess of the worldwide trade in LNG natural gas estimated at US$160 billion in 2019. (These estimates are subject to verification).

The following graphs of the Opium Survey indicate the underlying data, respectively in 2001 and in 2022-2025.

The above map indicates the impacts of the opium ban by province in 2025.

Compare that to the 2024-2025 map below.

The illegal trade in opioids which historically had been protected by the US military has been abolished.

The Alcis graph below indicates the underlying impacts on agriculture in Helmand Province in 2022 and 2023 (namely in the year following the April 2022 Ban on Opium Cultivation).

The Alcis map below indicates the process of opium poppy eradication recorded in 2023 for Afghanistan, in the year following the April 2022 opium ban.