Drug and terror

The past few days have brought drugs back into the national agenda. Discussion had started in journalistic quarters on how drug-pushing is a key part of the terrorism chain in Pakistan. On Monday, Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif spoke about the army’s resolve to break the links between drug-pushers and terrorists at all costs. The COAS compared drug producers to terrorists as equal, if not bigger, national security threats. The connection Sharif drew between drug money and terrorism is not off the mark, given that the opium trade is well-known to be one of the sources of funding for the Afghan Taliban during their periods in power and out of it. However, the connection in Pakistan has not been made with similar clarity as yet, with little to no details having been released regarding the relationship between TTP commanders and the drug trade. While it is clear that the COAS was addressing the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) headquarters in Rawalpindi, the same message had been delivered earlier by Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan, who claimed that Pakistan was winning its war on drugs.
Sharif noted that the ANF had seized record amounts of drugs in the last two years and helped maintain the Poppy Free Status for Pakistan, which means that there is no opium being produced inside Pakistan. Generations are certainly lost to high-end drugs and cutting of the drug supply chain would be a key mechanism to break the funding sources for a number of terrorist groups. The fight against drugs is, however, not going as strong as we may tend to believe. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) has estimated that at least 20 tonnes of pure heroin is consumed in Pakistan each year. Most of this heroin comes in through the Afghan circuit, with estimates that much of the heroin production goes through Pakistan for global distribution. The army has claimed to have destroyed a number of drug producing and processing units during the ongoing Operation Zarb-e-Azb, but the availability of high-end opiates in the Pakistani market place remains fairly common. The message of the COAS is that if Pakistan can eliminate drugs, it can eliminate terrorism. The target then needs to be drug peddlers and less drugs users. What need to be addressed are the causes for consumption, which remain rampant poverty and joblessness. If there is no market for the illegal commodity anymore, the trade itself will end. Till then, the efforts of the ANF need strengthening.