An analysis on terminating policies of opium production in Afghanistan

Poppy is a threat to human lives, which is seen as a major burden on the whole world's health systems. Globally, 247 million people are addicted to drugs. 187 thousand drug-related deaths are reported annually. The countries such as USA and NATO members are in the process of reducing supply by limiting its production to solve this problem. Poppy is one of the drugs uses in the world. Since the 1990's, Afghanistan is the world leading producer and supplier of opium. After the collapse of the Taliban in 2001, NATO and the USA has begun to implement opium production termination policies in different forms, and some of these policies are still on going. The aim of this study is to investigate and examine the effectiveness of the policies implemented in Afghanistan within the framework of the Ministry of Counter-Narcotic, Ministry of Rural Affairs and Ministry of Agriculture and livestock. The data have been collected from different sources and then used in this study, include regional basic opium price, production and cultivation area, the price of related products implemented policies and zones as dummy variable from 2000 to 2015. The results of the study showed that among the implemented policies, Good Performer Initiative and Alternative Livelihood were effective in poppy termination and other policies were failed. Also, it has been found that the supply of poppy-producing regions is dependent on the price elasticity and safety conditions. Therefore, in addition, good management and safety it is proposed to consider the poppy supply elasticity of the region in the policies making.