Recent UN reports (Oct – Nov, 2003) state that up to 75% of world opium is produced in Afghanistan. Nearly 80,000 hectares agricultural land is used for cultivation of opium poppy. Thus, assessing Afghanistan potential of opium production, one important aspect has been the permanent growth of drug trafficking from Afghanistan via Tajikistan to the CIS and Europe. According to UNODC, about 120 tons of drugs in heroin equivalent are supplied to Europe through Central Asian countries. Some estimates indicate that up to 65% of Afghan heroin and opium is transported to Russia and Europe via the Central Asian region.

“It is easier for smugglers to carry drugs though Central Asian republics and Russia, because their state boundaries (except for Uzbekistan) are significantly more transparent and less protected”, according to the Kyrgyz Drug Control Agency. Another important factor is the use of one language (Russian) as a means of communication from the Afghan border on south to the Finnish and Norwegian boundaries in the north.

From Tajikistan drugs, are delivered to Kyrgyzstan mainly via the Khorog-Osh highway, then further to Bishkek, where it is forwarded to Russia through Kazakhstan either by air or railway transports; part of the drugs stay in Kyrgyzstan. Joint efforts of the law enforcement bodies of Russia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan led to the neutralization of illegal drug trafficking by setting up boundary checkpoints and strengthening customs control.

However, pursuant to the data of the information bulletin “Drugs in Central Asia”, after a visa regime was introduced in Uzbekistan in 2000 and the border control was strengthened, these measures led part of the Afghan-Tajik drug traffic again to turn towards Kyrgyzstan, and now this route is again picking up speed.

In 2003 alone, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kyrgyzstan detained 2424 persons for drug crimes. 3500 kg of all types of drugs were seized all over the country. Furthermore, a distinct change in the structure of illegal drugs is being observed – less opium is seized, but seizures of heroin are instead rapidly increasing.

Socially less secure layers of Kyrgyzstan’s population are more and more involved in the drug trade. Most of the detained are people, who were not able to adapt to market economy after the collapse of the Soviet Union. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, more than 93% of people who committed drug crimes were unemployed and uneducated. The volumes of cannabis (hemp), found among them are increasing. On several occasions, unemployed rural dwellers were detained with parties of cannabis weighing from 35 to 100 kg.

In his report to the parliament, Mr. Kubatbekov mentioned that “forecasting the development of the drug situation in republic in the future, we could state with some confidence that the tendency of ‘Afghan’ drug transit with an increasing dominance of heroin will remain. It is preconditioned with the presence of several interrelated factors: large volumes of opium in Afghanistan (about 7000 tons combined in 2002-2003) and, accordingly, a continuing growth of heroin production and its further transit via the border zone of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan”.

In order to counter the drug trade in Kyrgyzstan, the State Commission on Drug Control, which had existed for over 10 years, was turned into a full-blown Drug Control Agency, following recommendations of the UNODC and by the initiative of Kyrgyzstan’s President Askar Akayev. This new status provides the employees of the new agency with an increased mandate to exercise drug control.

With the work of the DCA picking up, it is hoped that the near future will overturn the negative tendency of increased drug trafficking from Afghanistan. Although most of the detained will still likely be people forced to engage in illegal drug-related activity because of social and economic reasons, the opening of DCA may increase the rate of intercepted drugs, and decrease the threats posed to Kyrgyzstan’s population.