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Farmers in Afghanistan, made more desperate by the war, are returning to opium poppy cultivation in the face of government threats. It’s an issue being followed closely by Michael Steinberg, assistant professor of geography.
Steinberg studies why people grow drugs and why government eradication programs fail. Steinberg was among scientists invited to speak on how science can respond to terrorism at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in February.
Steinberg addressed why people grow opium poppies in Afghanistan and what role the West has played in creating what he terms "the narco-terror landscape." His talk on "Afghanistan's Harvest of Violence: Opium Poppies, Rural Development and Civil War," was part of a symposium on "Afghanistan and Terrorism: World Transformation?" at the 2002 AAAS meeting, which drew 4,000 participants and 1,000 journalists to Boston.
"As a result of the recent war in Afghanistan —and the acknowledgement of the link between poppies and the Taliban by the West— the West's attention has been briefly focused on Afghani farmers and their involvement in the production of opium poppies," Steinberg says in his paper. "Profits from illicit drug plant production directly fund governments, insurgent movements, and terrorists in many parts of the globe.... Increasingly, the West (especially the United States) no longer perceives drug plant production as a human health or development issue, but a political-military issue," he said. "Current military commitments by the United States in Afghanistan and Colombia demonstrate that the war on drugs has been integrated into the war on terrorism....However, dislodging this agricultural activity, and the accompanying political instability it spawns, presents many challenges for post-war Afghanistan and in other drug plant production landscapes. In order to understand why people grow drug plants, we must begin to understand the structural forces in place today and in the recent past that create unstable socioeconomic conditions, which often make drug plant production the most rational livelihood choice for peasant farmers. We must also acknowledge the often-prominent role played by the West in creating these structures."
Steinberg's research is focused on the relationship between indigenous people/ethnic minorities and drug plant production, trade, and eradication. He is the editor of a forthcoming Oxford University Press book, "Dangerous Harvest: Drug Plants and the Transformation of Indigenous Landscapes." In January, he presented his research findings on the connections between drugs and terrorism at a workshop/symposium sponsored by the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C. He is organizing an international conference on "Nations, States, Drugs and Terrorism: Collusions & Conflicts" to be co-sponsored by USM and the American Geographical Society in May 2003.
He received a Faculty Senate Research award for 2002 that has allowed him to study poppy production in Guatemala.
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