Afghanistan's Opium Wars: Amazing Photos From 'National Geographic'

The February issue of National Geographic takes an in-depth look at Afghanistan's opium wars. As writer Robert Draper discovers, a key step to securing peace in the war-torn country will be to wean Afghan farmers off growing poppies. As his report states:

The grim axiom defining today's Afghanistan, 85 percent of whose citizens are farmers, is that its economy relies on two dueling revenue streams. One flows from Western aid, in the hopes that the country will renounce the Taliban. The other flows from opium trafficking supported by the Taliban, which use the proceeds to fund attacks on Western troops. Only recently has the Afghan government seemed to take stock of the obvious: For the outside world's largesse to continue, the national economy's addiction to opium must end. The poppy fields must be destroyed. But just as this devoutly Muslim nation did not become the world's leading opium supplier overnight, uprooting Afghanistan's poppy mind-set promises to be a complicated endeavor.

Read the full article by Robert Draper in the February 2011 issue of National Geographic, available on newsstands now.

See the amazing full gallery by National Geographic's David Guttenfelder here.

View a small sample of images from Guttenfelder's gallery below. All photos and captions are shown courtesy of National Geographic.

BIG SHOTS

Launch the fullpage Big Shots slideshow >>

The Hindu Kush mountains create hellish terrain for International Security Assistance Force troops but offer protection for poppy farmers and hidden highways for smugglers. Illicit trade routes deliver opium to Russia and Europe; with 1.5 million addicts, Russia is the largest consumer of heroin.

The Hindu Kush mountains create hellish terrain for International Security Assistance Force troops but offer protection for poppy farmers and hidden highways for smugglers. Illicit trade routes deliver opium to Russia and Europe; with 1.5 million addicts, Russia is the largest consumer of heroin.

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Comments

[wm1066]

12:50 PM on 02/04/2011

The Huns had a drink made from opium that they took before they went into battle to lesson the pain if they got hurt, the Romans did the same thing, they felt it gave them strength. But these people didn't get addicted to the drug like people that smoke it or inject it. The more a drug is refined the more addictive it is. Another example is the Peruvian who can chew the leaves for altitude sickness but isn't as addicted like people that smoke crack cocaine..... But then you had some Viking Bererkers that would eat magic mushrooms before going into battle...can't imagine what that was like!

[BassguyGG]

09:34 AM on 02/04/2011

Above ground, our presence in Afghanistan is nothing more than a profit center for our defense contractors. Below ground, the American government gives lip service to stopping the opium trade but the "shadow government" profits from it and uses it to fund their "shadow armies" in Yemen and Pakistan. As Gen. Smedley Butler said, "War is a racket!"

[banker67]

10:12 AM on 03/26/2011

Agree: It's no accident that after a decade of U.S. occupation, the opium crop flourishes.
And I'm terminally bored by this perennial Geographic/ Smithsonian story blaming the greedy farmers who would surely prefer to grow sorghum.The opium/heroin industry isn't just enormously profitable, it also generates the most liquid tax-free cash in the financial world. It's absurd to think the big banks aren't in up to their armpits on the money laundering side.
Equally silly is the notion that the CIA isn't in on the profits, as you point out, to fund their proprietary drone air force. Why put up with the meddling of the U.S. Air Force when you can have a private fleet of fighter-bombers? It's not like anyone in Congress will question the CIA; we know the U.S. Supreme Court won't.
Best, the opium and heroin can easily and very cheaply be shipped to Europe through oil pipelines in pipe-maintenance submersibles. Who's going to search an oil pipeline? Not me. You?
Yet it's just a crop, a pile of plants. We defoliated huge areas of Vietnam to make it easier to kill the people who live there, so it's ridiculous to say that we -- with absolute control of the air -- can't eliminate a crop in a few valleys. If decency is out of the question, at least spare us the smarmy propaganda articles in Geographic. Stick to those savage Aztecs and Incas who were saved by the Christian Spanish.

[Wanderland]

12:25 PM on 02/03/2011

How about if we just buy it directly from the farmers, burn it, and then have a program where they're paid the difference in the price of their new food corps compared to the old opium crop? They don't lose a dime, and they have more food, and the Taliban doesn't profit.

[american-dolt]

12:14 PM on 02/03/2011

I have heard that the US Military is protecting the Opium Farmers from the Taliban, straight for the horses mouth.

Why are we there again?

[NonConforming]

08:15 PM on 02/02/2011

So this 7th century cave culture which sends suicide bombers to attack america also has a fascination with growing and smoking Opium - which kills the body and mind.

I think Opium and Radical-Islam go hand and hand.
Google origins of 'assasin' - drug aided Islamich holy warriors.

[Magic 62]

12:19 AM on 03/16/2011

the word assassin comes from the cult of Hashishi, that supposedly smoked Hashish, and were very competent assassins, not holy warriors. More like Iranian Ninjas.

[black series]

08:44 PM on 02/01/2011

what they dont publish
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/163052.html

[NonConforming]

08:18 PM on 02/02/2011

YEah, like Iran news is real objective. How many people did they behead in Tehran last week for fornication or homosexuality. Egypt has been exporting suicide bombers to Israel for past 25 years - with numerous attacks from the Sinai that were not stopped by the Egyptian Army.
There has never been a mass killing by an Israeli in Egypt.

[Magic 62]

12:19 AM on 03/16/2011

No one.

[climbing panda]

03:35 PM on 02/01/2011

marx was wrong. opium is the opiate of the masses.

[Hank007]

10:41 AM on 02/01/2011

People forget, the Taliban was against growing opium, saying it was against Islam. After we invaded, and they learned how much addiction is a problem in the west, they decreed growing opium as a means to fight the oppressor, hence the explosion in crop cultivation.

Funny how no one in the government thinks of the obvious: use this massive opium supply to make legal pharmaceutical drugs, and drop their price massively. Currently Australia is the leading grower of opium for the pharma industry.

[Edward Standley]

06:22 PM on 02/01/2011

Many reports pinpoint Hamed Karzai's brother as the biggest opium profiteer. The U.S certainly won't be stepping on those toes.

[NonConforming]

08:19 PM on 02/02/2011

The Taliban did not ban opium growing. It decreased a little form 1998 to 2001, but not by much.
Most of the opium is consumed locally in Afgan and has been for centuries.

[HasanAli]

02:30 AM on 02/01/2011

93% of global production of drugs by Afganistan. So if you're producing that much, it practically means Afghanistan is bathing in it

[freddychef]

01:40 AM on 02/01/2011

funny, if it aint oil where america invades,
its drugs.

[Edward Standley]

06:23 PM on 02/01/2011

Imagine that.

[mikefina]

02:36 PM on 01/31/2011

GoodGodMan--even their "eradication" methods are primative. Sticks??

Jeepers, were we to bomm them "back" to the StoneAge, it would likely represent an ADVANCE in their culture.

Get out of there NOW.

[UberdanSounds]

02:07 PM on 01/31/2011

I'll chime in here & post these great links to find out how we can all get involved.

http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php

http://norml.org

We need to get things on Ballots & show our politicians that WE make our laws, not them!

[rmspaintman]

01:52 PM on 01/31/2011

Some how i think it would be cheaper to buy it all from them and destroy it then try to end its growing by Gov.for none of us living today will see the Gov. rid ANY illegal drug from the world as long as people want to buy them.

[Hank007]

10:38 AM on 02/01/2011

Or buy it and use it to make legal pharmaceutical drugs. Currently that opium is grown in Australia.

[Vantunow]

01:50 PM on 01/31/2011

Drug trade is 300 billion plus business.

Rest assured that money is not buried in some cave in Afghanistan or Banana plantation is Columbia.

Banksters love laundering drug money.

[acmes]

01:02 PM on 01/31/2011

Good Nat Geo this month. Paris underground and homegrown Afghan horrors