The Opium Threat: Post-Soviet States in a Demographic and Security Crisis

Drug abuse and addiction in Russia and in many post-Soviet states is a threat to the welfare and a secure future of the populations residing in the region. In a country where birth rates are declining and the average life span is decreasing, Russia cannot afford to exacerbate these factors by permitting the rise of drug abuse and skyrocketing numbers of HIV infections among its citizens. Intravenous drug use, namely of heroin, is an ever growing problem in Russia. Although many Russian youth are using illegal substances at an alarmingly early age, drug use spans multiple generations and socioeconomic classes unlike most other drug using populations. In 2008, Russia was ranked first worldwide in highest number of heroin users. Corresponding with this ranking is the number of HIV positive Russians that increased by almost million from 2000 to 2009 (Kramer, 32). There has been a fifteen fold rise in the number of drug related crimes and a ten fold increase in the number of drug users in the last decade (Shelley, 17). Estimates have been made that another 8 million HIV infections could plague Russia within the next several years (Maskas, 157). The rise of HIV infections in Russia is a direct result of intravenous drug use in the country, resulting from a circulation of unsterile needles. Why does opiate addiction plague the Russian nation and its citizens? How has the drug trade flourished and dominated threats to security, welfare, and health in both Russia and Central Asia? This paper works to answer these questions by recognizing the source of the problem, the origin of the opiates, and how a series of political events corresponded with indigenous societal and geographical characteristics of the region that produced a dangerous, international, and dynamic drug trade that infiltrates Central Asia and the surrounding countries.

Drug abuse in Russia began with the conclusion of the Soviet-Afghan War when Soviet soldiers returned with opium and a new addiction (Orlova, 23), sometimes with enduring ties to drug producers in Afghanistan (Maskas, 156). Within the next two years the Soviet Union collapsed and opiates were able to flow fairly easily into Russia and neighboring states. With a poor economy and little hope for growth, many Russians turned to drug use as a retreat from the difficulties of day-to-day life (Maskas, 155). Additionally, some saw narcotics trafficking and dealing as a lucrative source of income that wasnt available in the legal economy (Shelley, 16). Drug traffickers and dealers are not limited to ordinary criminals but penetrate all spectrums of society, including but not limited to Russian military personnel, law enforcement officers, Soviet ethnic-based crime groupsand illegal immigrants from Asian countries (Shelley, 17). In 1979 Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan in order to provide military support for the recently established communist government. Anti-regime mujahideen groups fought against the Soviets and leftist government with the support of the United States, Pakistan, and Muslims across the Middle East. During this war between 1979 and 1989 production of opium throughout Afghanistan grew tremendously, largely because of the 1973 ban on opium production in Turkey, which had previously dominated the opium market (Medler, NP). The poppy plant, which generates opium, adapts well to the drought-plagued climate of Afghanistan. The mountainous regions of the country are hard to access and act as havens for drug labs and manufacturing sites that produce the opium to sell (Maskas, 145). American and Pakistani funds that went towards the mujahideen resistance were also funneled into opium production through mechanisms of the anti-regime groups (Cornell, 43). After the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, the closest thing to an institutionalized state or form of leadership in Afghanistan was Taliban rule. Destruction of infrastructure and agricultural

regions, combined with a lack of economic options due to the post-war instability led Afghan farmers to rely on opium farming for revenue (Medler, NP). Until 2001 when the Taliban-led rule collapsed, the militant group was understood to have made between ten and fifteen million dollars on the opium trade through taxes. Although the Taliban attempted to ban the production of opium in 2000, production began a year later and by 2005 the drug trade contributed to more than 52 percent of the countrys GDP (Cornell, 60). With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 instability struck the entire region with most former Soviet states entering an era of economic, political, and social turmoil. One imminent change after the Soviet collapse was the opening of Soviet borders and the withdrawal of Soviet border guards (Orlova, 24). Weak states in Central Asia were left without Soviet guidance and the inability to establish functional welfare, security, or economic institutions (Marat, 94). Former Soviet drawn boundaries between the Central Asian states hosted a crosscutting collection of ethnic groups and tribes who shared different interests and beliefs, making it hard for these territories to form nation states on their own. Additionally, the Central Asian region mainly consisted of an agricultural sector, roughly sixty percent, which was affected the most when subsidies were withdrawn after the USSR collapse (Marat, 95). Additionally, the immediate incursion of poverty in Central Asia sent millions migrants to Russia and surrounding states in search of labor (Shelley, 16). In Tajikistan specifically, a civil war erupted in the 1990s between communist and religious ideological groups that wanted to spearhead the government. With little economic competence and the absence of state-controlled military, Tajikistan after the communist bloc collapse was in chaos (Marat, 103). Non-state actors were able to develop relatively strong

militias and infiltrate the political and economic activity with crime. These non-state actors in Tajikistan looked for a source for funding and found it in the opium trade. A perfect storm of historical events and political circumstances that preceded the 1990s led to the rampant development of an international drug trade that penetrates Central Asia, parts of the Middle East, and Russia. The geographic location of Afghanistan, cradled in between Central Asia and the Middle East (see Figure 1) permits optimal transportation of opium and opium products, like heroin, to demanding markets. While half of the heroin arriving in Russia from Afghanistan is meant for foreign markets, fifty percent is for Russian users (Maskas, 156). Tajikistan is the least obstructive state in the region concerning the facilitation of opium in the international drug trade stemming from Afghanistan. Tajiks are an ethnic group that reside on both sides of the Tajik-Afghan border and therefore possess a uniting quality of language and heritage that strengthen their interstate ties. This crosscutting ethnic group, in addition to crossborder roads that were built during the Soviet invasion in 1979 enable for less obstructed trafficking of opium out of Afghanistan into Tajikistan (Medler, NP). The mountainous and rough terrain of Afghanistan (see Figure 2) and its borders with neighboring countries of similar topography makes them difficult to patrol and monitor. Drug trafficking groups, native to the country, are familiar with informal routes that evade what little infrastructure actually exists. When the Soviet Union collapsed, a liberalization of border patrol and travel ensued across all former members states, greater increasing the opportunity for drug trafficking across the region. The Caspian Sea touches Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Russia and acts as another prime smuggling route via the ferry system (Maskas, 151). Another route for transporting narcotics lies in the east-west rail line that connects parts of Central Asia to the Ukraine and parts of the Russian West (Medler, NP). The collapse left an economic void and

often a power vacuum that was soon filled by criminal organizations, primarily drug traffickers, at local and regional levels (Marat, 97). In addition the planned economy of the Soviet Union had, near its demise, failed to meet the needs of most of its industries, businesses, and citizens. Due to this ineptitude a sophisticated black market had developed among criminal organizations,

Figure 1. Central Asia

Figure 2. Afghan Topography

government officials, and even entire state institutions so that after the collapse these criminal networks became stronger and more palpable (Marat, 97). The relationship between terrorism and drug trafficking also began to intersect in this post-Soviet era. Radical Islam emerged as ethnic Islamist groups saw the opportunity to separate from their states in a weak political atmosphere. Although crime and terror have traditionally been studied and regarded in separate and distinct spheres, the fall of communism and the end of the Cold War have produced effects that often blur the two. Because political influence often

coincides with economic power, terrorists have powerful motivation to gain control of this illegal trade in the region (Engvall, 830). Non-state actors before and during the Cold War were often funded by foreign nations and entities that supported the cause of independence or aligned with the ideology of the specific non-state organization. The United States and USSR, and their respective allies, often bolstered competing groups in an effort to out-bid each other in the support for either democracy in the case of the former and communism in the latter. When the Western world ultimately defeated Soviet ideology and institution, the need to establish power subsided (Engvall, 836). Additionally, as fundamental Islamist action grew more prevalent in Afghanistan, it was recognized that money from the U.S. and Pakistan to mujahideens in the 1980s most likely put weapons and skill in the hands of anti-American terrorists. These events led to the dissolution of donating habits of foreign supporters. In turn, non-state actors and burgeoning fundamental organizations couldnt depend on funding from foreign supporters. The highly profitable activity of drug trafficking has become a solution for these radical non-state actors in need of funding. In the poorly developed countries of the Central Asian region, politics and economic control are intertwined (Engvall, 830). Afghanistan, an ideal refuge for opium production labs, remains equally fitting for harboring terrorists. It has been a safe haven for Al Qaeda and its leaders throughout the last two decades, where terrorist training camps and cave dwellings hosted hundreds of radical Islamists planning to further demoralize the Christian West. Current Afghan President Karzai has publicly stated that Afghan drug money is feeding terrorism. Terrorists in Afghanistan, armed and familiar with the land, can provide protection and transportation services for drug traffickers

leaving Afghanistan and with their payment from the operation will contribute to terrorist assets (Maskas, 148). Outside of Afghanistan, terrorists also take advantage of this lucrative trade. An Uzbek Islamist who fought in the Tajikistan civil war established the Islamist Movement of Uzbekistan, or IMU. In the late 1990s, The IMU declared a holy war against the ruling regime in Uzbekistan and mobilized out of Tajikistan (Engvall, 838). IMU guerilla troops were sent to seize hostages and demand ransoms in order to gain funding. Later, IMU attacks perpetrated in the valley where Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan converged appeared militarily nonsensical and fruitless. Some observers claim that these attacks, when considering the type of assault, geographic range, and timing, suggest that the impetus was not to provoke attention to the IMUs religious cause but to weaken borders in the region so that drug trafficking routes could be retained and safeguarded (Engvall, 839). Timing of the attacks was extremely curious, occurring at the end of summer following the annual opium harvest in Afghanistan. The IMU is a perfect example of terrorist and criminal actions that intersect and often shift priorities back and forth as funding for operations or for revenue grows or wanes in importance. Statistics from Interpol show that during the height of IMU activity, the organization was accountable for around 70 percent of trafficked heroin moving from Tajikistan to Kyrgyzstan. When the United States entered Afghanistan in 2001, the IMU leader was reportedly killed and considerable amounts of their military support was destroyed (Engvall, 840), however it is still a possibility that remnants of the groups ideology and actors remain in Central Asia. Tajikistan, out of all Central Asian countries, is experiencing the most destabilizing effects from the drug trade in the region. Tajikistans cohesion as a state has been threatened

since the fall of the Soviet Union and the outbreak of its civil war. Johan Engvall (2006) defines a weak state as one threatened by these characteristics: A lack of societal cohesion and consensus on what organizing principles should determine the contest for state power and how that power should be executed, low capacity and/or low political will of state institutions to provide all citizens with minimum levels of security and well-being, high vulnerability to external economic and political forces, and a low degree of popular legitimacy accorded to the holders of state power by portions of the citizenry (829).

Engvall asserts that Tajikistan exudes many of these conditions. Because of these precarious circumstances Tajikistan does not face many threats from foreign entities, like most nations, but encounters many obstacles from within. The drug trade in Tajikistan affects all sectors in which the security of a state can be threatenedobtaining profit through criminal activity is one of the most powerful driving forces within [the countrys] political and economic system (Engvall, 829). Outside of the drug trade Erica Marat (2006, 105) reports that the only source contributing to the Gross Domestic Product is by way of remittances sent by labor migrants estimated to be between 6 and 8 billion dollars. Former war lords that helped lead the civil war are now involved in high-ranking government positions. John Kramer (2011) explains that seizures of drugs in Tajikistan coming from Afghanistan have been dropping drastically (40). Although the Russian military has provided troops to patrol the Tajik border, some of these entities have been charged with involvement in the drug trade themselves due to a lack of funding from the Russian government who fails to provide them with even a mediocre subsistence (Marat, 106). The Tajikistan drug control agency is not just understaffed, but underequipped, corrupt, and bureaucratically weak (Kramer, 40).

Corruption at the highest levels of government is one of the biggest obstacles in defeating the permeation of the narcotics trade in Tajikistan. Many leading insurgents during the civil war who obtained funding from the drug trade have now been installed in government positions, which has given them absolution from any formal investigations concerning their illicit activity. If government officials and appointees arent involved in the drug trade themselves, their family members often are: A gang headed by the Tajik presidents nephew, Rakhmonov, was caught in Moscow by the Russian security service for drug contraband in October 2003. Former Tajik Ambassador to Kazakhstan, Negmatov, was detained by the Kazakh security service with 62 kilograms of heroin and $54,000 in cash in his car in May 2000. The Head of the Counter-narcotics Agency of the Zarafshan region, Zakirov, was arrested for transporting more than 30 kilograms of narcotics in 2004. Gangs headed by the Mayor of Dushanbe and Parliament Chair Makhmadsaid, GeneralMayor Shamolov, former field commander Kurbonali, and deputy Commander of Border Troops Nazarov were intercepted by the Uzbek and Russian security services. There are many other cases of former field commanders and opposition camps engaged in the drug trade (Marat, 108).

Marat accounts for just a portion of high-ranking officials that have been connected to, accused, or found guilty of participating in the illicit trade. Corruption is not only saturating the institutions of Tajikistan, but greatly hindering Russia as well. One major reason that Russia has not been able to tackle the addiction problem within its borders is the unwillingness of high-ranking officials to monitor the corruption within their own institutions and law enforcement agencies. Alexandra Orlova (2009) accounts that drug dealers and traffickers pay off police to avoid arrest and often cooperate with these law enforcement units to secure an obstructed path to consumers (25). Even more specifically, officials in charge of drug dealing detection or Militia divisions dominate the list of disclosed large drug dealersin 2003 several Federal Drug Control Service agents were arrested after allegedly taking bribes to not launch a criminal case against a drug trafficker (Maskas, 163).

Organized crime in Russia is a dominating force that Maskas (2004) claims is bigger and more important than the state (154). Russian Organize Crime groups, or ROCs infiltrate up to two thirds of the economy, as some estimate. ROC groups not only maintain power of private businesses and banks, but also state owned enterprises and government officials. The ROCs bribe officials who would have the power to investigate and prosecute their far-reaching web of illegal revenue (Maskas, 153). These organized crime groups often extend into international networks, which makes prosecution even more difficult. Although some interstate efforts have been organized to fight the international organized crime in the region, most states do not have the capabilities, resources, or willingness to terminate the system. The drug trade that has developed and prospered in Central Asia has far reaching consequences outside its immediate region. Certainly the impending health, economic, and security threats to Russia and Tajikistan are a crisis that must be dealt with head on by aiming to reduce addiction among the demanding consumers within the region. The opiate trade emanating from Afghanistan, however, will reach and affect hundreds of other nations whether directly, through an increase in opiate addiction or HIV as a result of intravenous drug use, or indirectly by means of drug-funded Islamist radicalism. The opium and heroin produced in Afghanistan reaches consumers on almost every continent (See Figure 3), which means that users across the globe will submit themselves to an ever-growing network of crime, disease, and instability. Although Russia has attempted to address the addiction problem by establishing state rehabilitation facilities, only a small percentage of users actually register at these locations due to societal stigmas and laws that persecute drug users rather than dealers. Some private treatment facilities have been erected, but the price is often too costly for addicts living in the poor economic conditions of Putins Russia. Additionally, drug withdrawal treatments that are most

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Figure 3. Global Heroin Flows

effective for opiate addicts are not available in Russia do to the countrys laws classifying Methadone, the treatment drug, as illicit (Maskas, 166). Russian anti-drug task force organizations perform overlapping and unsynchronized tasks (Maskas). Efforts to centralize the anti-drug institutions and operations in Russia should be a primary focus, and funding should be streamlined towards a singular and effective team as well as towards prevention programs rather than local levels of law enforcement. Another major obstacle in working to prevent the illicit trade and therefore reduce the number of addicts in Russia and surrounding countries is The Russian Criminal Code, which does not have the capability or specific, dictated power to prosecute large criminal organizations (Maskas). Priority in the Russian fight against drug-trafficking needs to be with enhancing its legal capabilities to indict and convict established organized crime groups within their borders and within the region that engage in an international network. Bringing down the network of these crosscutting criminal groups will reduce the ease and security they maintain in

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undermining the proliferation of a legal economy and safe society. If action is not taken by Russia, the regions strongest power, in attempting to dismantle the demand of opiate consumers within its own nation and the network in surround countries, devastating results could ensue including a growing HIV/AIDs epidemic, state failure within the Central Asian region, and financially equipped terrorist organizations that will have more leverage within the global political arena.

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Reference Cornell, Svante. 2006. "The Narcotics Threat in Greater Central Asia: From Crime- Terror Nexus to State Infiltration?" China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly 4(1): 37-67. Engvall, Johan. 2006. The State Under Siege: The Drug Trade and Organised Crime in Tajikistan. Europe-Asia Studies 6(58): 827-854. Global heroin flows of Asian origins. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2010/1.2_The_global_heroin_market.pdf Kramer, John. 2011. "Drug Abuse in Russia: An Emerging Threat," Problems of PostCommunism 58(1): 31-43. Map- Central Asia. http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/05/26/afghanistan-pakistan-iran-good-neigbours/ Marat, Erica. 2006. "Impact of Drug Trade and Organized Crime on State Functioning in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan," China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly 4(1): 93- 111. Maskas, Marisa. 2005. "Trafficking drugs: Afghanistan's role in Russia's current drug epidemic". Tulsa Journal of Comparative & International Law 13(1): 141-176. Medler, James. 2005. "Afghan Heroin: Terrain, Tradition and Turmoil," Orbis (spring 2005): 275-291 Orlova, Alexandra. 2009. "The Russian War on Drugs: A Kinder, Gentler Approach," Problems of Post-Communism 56(1): 23-34. Paoli, Letizia. 2002. The Price of Freedom: Illegal Drug Markets and Policies in PostSoviet Russia. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 582: 167-180. Shelley, Louise. 2006. "The Drug Trade in Contemporary Russia," China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly 4(1): 15-20. Topography- Afghanistan. http://maps.google.com

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