Opium: uncovering the politics of the poppy

The first half of the book (chapters 1 to 5), draws on the complex history and geopolitics of the opium poppy in Asia, from Neolithic times to the mid-twentieth-century emergence of the Golden Triangle and the Golden Crescent, to the most recent developments in opium production in Afghanistan and Burma. How, where and when did illicit opium production take place in Asia? Who contributed to the emergence of the Golden Triangle and the Golden Crescent, and why? How and where did opium and heroin trafficking occur? Chapters 1 to 5 give a detailed overview of the roots and dynamics of illicit opium production and of drug trafficking in both the Golden Triangle and the Golden Crescent.
The following chapters first detail and explain how and why illicit opium production thrived in certain regions and countries of Asia and not in others. What relations existed and still exist between war and drugs, between war economies and drug economies? Did illicit opium production finance terrorism or did the strategic imperatives of the War on Terrorism put the War on Drugs on hold?
Alongside such geopolitical and geostrategic considerations, this book also offers a detailed look at the diversity and complexity of the agricultural and economic contexts of opium poppy cultivation in both Southeast and Southwest Asia. How and why is opium production undertaken in Asia, and by whom? Why do some Asian farmers resort to illicit opium production in spite of its labour intensiveness and poor economic yield? Understanding the ‘drivers’ of opium poppy cultivation and the motivations of opium farmers is a prerequisite to understanding the reasons for the successes and failures of anti-drug policies. How and why did forty years of forced eradication, crop substitution, and alternative development programmes not only fail to suppress illicit opium production but even to hamper its growth? In conclusion the book details and analyses the shortcomings, insufficiencies, and potentialities of anti-drug policies by reviewing the anti-drug history of Asia’s opium producing countries.
[Extract of the publication]