Quo Vadis Alternative Development (for illicit narco crops)

Quo Vadis Alternative Development?



My answer is – downhill.

Can poverty have borders? Be divided into sectors? So that one sector gets
preferred treatment just because it grows illicit crops, and the other that
does not grow is ignored?

Alternative Development's champions think so. Alternative Development (AD)
proposes that finding alternative sources of income for people cultivating
illicit narcotic drugs will work. It differentiates between those who
cultivate and those who do not- even if both are poor. It has till now not
recognized the reality that many traditional illicit cultivators grow, for
instance, opium for their own consumption, and it is impossible to treat
them (at least in a free country) for they don't want to be treated. Income
is not the only matter of concern that requires an alternative. Do the
crusaders of AD think that usage will vanish once opium cultivation goes?
They are wrong if they think so.

Then there are an another lot , who have got rich because of cultivating
opium, and are not going to give it up by producing rice or fruit or
handicrafts instead. I shall stick with the analogy of opium cultivation
only for that is what I have experience with.

Despite employing the renowned consultants, analysts, researcher and pots
of money AD crusaders have not been able to stop illicit crop cultivation
which has been leaping ahead of the hopes of AD dreamers. In Afghanistan
7.5 bln dollars have been spent on enforcement and several hundred millions
on AD, which rides on the back of enforcement. Yet, opium poppy cultivation
keeps surprising every one by its next year's increase.

AD, without any scientific analysis of its past performance, has been
pushed, for close to three decades, as the only cure for illicit
cultivation of narcotics crops the world over. Yet there is hardly any
success that its staunchest supporters – UNODC, GTZ, TNI, US and UK chiefly-
have to show. They go on trumpeting about Thailand's Doi Tung success,
which is such a minor project, but with tons of money, that an NGO runs it.


AD's crusaders want time before they can show success! As if thirty years
is not enough. And during this time illicit cultivation has grown
everywhere, intruded into new areas and has become commercial.

Its assumptions are faulty. It is assumed that the cultivators are poor,
and that the regions they live in are backward. Thus the condescending
promoters of AD feel that these unfortunate folk have to be shown some
other way of life that is somewhat as lucrative, and not illegal according
to the UN Conventions. A very big oversight is that they largely ignore the
fact that despite treatment for a few over 70% will relapse. What about
these people? If in an ideal state, which can never ever be, there is no
opium grown what will happen to these habitual dependents?

What about the poor folk next door who do not cultivate illicit crops? No
development for them? Can poverty be parceled off into areas that require
precedence and those that don't?

And what about the rich cultivators? Will AD apply to them?

What AD's campaigners never speak about is that AD depends a lot on
eradication for thei imagined and hoped for success. After illicit crops
are threatened with eradication they come along with their philosophy- the
Shining Path of Alternative Development.

While promoting the virtues of AD its supporters ignore the users. Unless
opium, cannabis or coca is provided for the millions of traditional users
illicit crops will continue to be cultivated willy nilly. More than 3
million depend on opiates produced from the Afghanistan poppy fields. If by
some miracle all these fields vanish, what will happen to these? The
sternest of enforcement and the optimism of AD apologists has not worked
yet. And never will.

Unless, opium etc is given to the traditional users cultivation will
continue, and be used as a cover for commercial excess too. No power on
earth, whether AD or Enforcement propelled, has been able to stop it yet.

In a self conscious one sided vindication for AD brought out by the UNODC
in 2005 called Alternative Development: A Global Thematic Evaluation- Final
Synthesis Report (2005) and financed by the German Government nothing but
good things are said about AD. There has been no objective discussion on AD
yet. Though. In several countries, including India, people are questioning
it.

AD's advocates ignore the most important point that has been reiterated by
one UN resolution after another. Alternative Development is only meant as a
support to eradication. The latest UN Resolution 68/196 that was adopted by
the General Assembly on 18th December, 2013 is very clear on this issue. On
the very first page of this Resolution is this deliberately ignored
exhortation "Bearing in mind the content of article 14 of the 1988
Convention, regarding measures to eradicate illicit cultivation of narcotic
plants and cooperation to increase the effectiveness of those efforts."
Such oft repeated injunctions have also been excluded from the UNODC's own
extensive apologia about AD called Alternative Development: A global
Thematic Evaluation- Final Synthesis Report- 2005

Now look at Thailand, where AD started in 1988. There never was much of a
problem of vast tracts of opium being cultivated in Thailand. It was a
minor cultivating country. Yet, Thailand is Exhibit A to Z showing success
in AD. But see these figures:

In 1986 before AD started in Thailand there were 2408 hectares under
illicit cultivation of opium poppy. In 1988 there were 2811. In 1990, two
years after the start of AD in Thailand, there were 1782 hectares of
illicit opium poppy cultivation. For the same years 1718, 1740 and 2395
were eradicated. This obviously was the stick that was responsible for the
decrease in illicit cultivation. The AD carrot just made a big show.
Without it there would not have been any triumph to crow about, even though
it was pyrrhic. The numbers are highlighted in the UNODC tables below:

























Now, please see these figures from the World Drug Report of 2014: From 2003
to 2014 the WDR states "Owing to continuing low cultivation, figures
...Thailand 'was' included in the category 'Other Countries'." This is not
the case with eradication, which still continues to figure in the
eradication table every year. In 2013 the WDR states that 264 hectares were
eradicated. After 26 years of AD in Thailand, which did not have much
cultivation to begin with, eradication is still a policy that is rigorously
followed, and which is still not successful- for illicit cultivation
continues! And opium also continues to be smuggled from Burma and Laos, AND
addicts have moved to synthetics in alarming percentages, which continue to
rise.

Now, please see these figures from the World Drug Report of 2014:
From 2003 to 2014 the WDR states "Owing to continuing low cultivation,
figures ...Thailand 'was' included in the category 'Other Countries'." This
is not the case with eradication, which still continues to figure in the
eradication table every year. In 2013 the WDR states that 264 hectares were
eradicated. After 26 years of AD in Thailand, which did not have much
cultivation to begin with, eradication is still a policy that is rigorously
followed, and which is still not successful- for illicit cultivation
continues! And opium also continues to be smuggled from Burma and Laos, AND
addicts have moved to synthetics in alarming percentages, which continue to
rise.

Now, please see these figures from the World Drug Report of 2014:
From 2003 to 2014 the WDR states "Owing to continuing low cultivation,
figures ...Thailand 'was' included in the category 'Other Countries'." This
is not the case with eradication, which still continues to figure in the
eradication table every year. In 2013 the WDR states that 264 hectares were
eradicated. After 26 years of AD in Thailand, which did not have much
cultivation to begin with, eradication is still a policy that is rigorously
followed, and which is still not successful- for illicit cultivation
continues! And opium also continues to be smuggled from Burma and Laos, AND
addicts have moved to synthetics in alarming percentages, which continue to
rise.

Now, please see these figures from the World Drug Report of 2014:
From 2003 to 2014 the WDR states "Owing to continuing low cultivation,
figures ...Thailand 'was' included in the category 'Other Countries'." This
is not the case with eradication, which still continues to figure in the
eradication table every year. In 2013 the WDR states that 264 hectares were
eradicated. After 26 years of AD in Thailand, which did not have much
cultivation to begin with, eradication is still a policy that is rigorously
followed, and which is still not successful- for illicit cultivation
continues! And opium also continues to be smuggled from Burma and Laos, AND
addicts have moved to synthetics in alarming percentages, which continue to
rise.

The Addiction in Thailand has worsened. Not for opium. Its use has
undoubtedly declined, not because of the success of AD or eradication, but
because they have switched to more lethal synthetics. Opium they continue
to get from Burma or Laos. Why risk listening to speeches or enforcement
when they can more easily get the substance from next door!

India, which is my country, has not made any distinction between illicit
growing areas and contiguous or distant poor ones. Development was uniform
albeit slow but it is getting to the remotest corners of the country. In
what used to be an extremely remote place- Anjaw and Lohit Districts of
Arunachal Pradesh, bordering Burma and China, development has made life
better for many people. Education has covered all. Young men and women are
in all kinds of jobs aviation, academics, bureaucratic, business,
engineering, entreprenurial, armed forces, politics, scientists, trade and
technical. That means in all walks of life. Yet, the families of some of
the very people who have benefited from development, have become large
scale commercial level illicit opium poppy cultivators. Bang goes the
alternative development panacea.

There are many poor cultivators still. Infact most of them are poor. But
they produce mainly for their own use and barter the surplus for cereals or
clothes or utensils. And the area under cultivation is immense. More than
16000 hectares. Exceeding the total size of the 27 villages in the Doi Tung
AD Project area, where less than 1500 hectares were claimed to have been
cultivated before the start of improvement in that area in 1988.

Unless, the needs of the users is taken into account illicit crops
cultivation will continue. If it is stopped in one place it will emerge in
another.

Foot note: In November 2014 I challenged this idea of AD at a training
meeting in Jodhpur India. The speaker before me was Ms. Ramrada Ninnad of
the Mae Fah Luang Foundation- the NGO that was responsible for Doi Tung.
After I had said that the Thai project was too minor to be a guiding light
for other nations she came up with an improbable statistic saying that at
the beginning of the project Thailand had 16000 hectares under illicit
opium poppy cultivation! The UNODC had put it at precisely 240-8 hectares
in 1986 as can be seen from the first table above. And these figures are
what the Thai Government had supplied to UNODC.

If one has to cook figures to justify a weak project it only means that
there is something drastically wrong with it.

And from the Southeast Asia Opium Survey 2014 a surprising detail is
noticed. On pg. 11 the average dry opium yield for Thailand is shown to be
15.6 kgs per hectare. As against 6 kgs per hectare in 1988 when the Thai AD
Project started in Doi Tung. (WDR 1999 pg. 21) !! This only indicates that
cultivating techniques have vastly improved. Such inconvenient statistics
and information are deliberately ignored.

In UNODC's apologia "Alternative Development: A Global Thematic Evaluation-
Final Synthesis report- 2005" it is claimed that the average wage increased
seven times. But, in the Doi Tung table, reproduced below from the 2005
report, it is seen that their professions remain almost the same, and they
remained wherever they were. Incidentally, Doi Tung is the only AD linked
project that the AD brigade talks about. It had one another advantage. The
Royal Guest House is there. It must have been embarrassing to have visitors
noticing poppy fields in the vicinity. Thus, to make virtue out of
necessity, Patronage poured in money.

Quite different from India's experience. All round development for many
of the people in the illicit cultivating areas meant that they left their
homes for all kinds of non manual professions all over the country and
their incomes increased just as much, and yet their families continued to
produce opium- some of them on a commercial scale. In this evaluation no
contrary opinion was asked for or given. It is a production of yes men and
women, though in the end (pg. 16) they do acknowledge briefly that
enforcement is necessary: "Interdiction should play a key support role in
illicit
crop reduction by: Extending the rule of law. Creating an environment for
economic and
political development. Lowering farm-gate prices for illicit crops to make
alternatives more attractive." The last one has been impossible till now
despite billions having been spent in Afghanistan alone!



A frank discussion on all aspects of AD is overdue. I do not suppose it
will, till the juke boxes of AD are compelled to join a debate. Maybe, just
maybe, during UNGASS 2016 on Narcotics this could be possible.

Meanwhile have a look at this addiction table below from the World Drug
Report of 2014:



Every year the addiction figures increase. Yet, no one seems to be worried
to really question why every attempt to curtail drug use is going awry.

I conclude with a quotation from Professor Julia Buxton's resoundingly
persuasive paper The Great Disconnect questioning the whole concept of AD.
Accusing the UNODC and others on the same side as it of "profound
institutional sclerosis" she asks how can alternative development be
successful if the end goal is prohibition. She says that drug policy and
the drug policy reform pay too much attention to raw opium poppy and coca
leaf rather than synthetics such as MDMA and ATS that are manufactured in
the Global North. This underlines the bias in the international drug
control model and the risk of further problematic interventions that
exacerbate rather that alleviate poverty, and insecurity traditional drug
cultivating regions. Why not have AD for synthetic producers too?