Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T05:58:59.608Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Drug Control in Afghanistan: Culture, Politics, and Power during the 1958 Prohibition of Opium in Badakhshan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

James Bradford*
Affiliation:
Northeastern University in Boston, USA

Abstract

This article explores the process leading to the Afghan government's decision to implement a prohibition and eradication of opium in the northeastern province of Badakhshan. It explores why Daud chose Badakhshan, the impact of the opium ban on the people of Badakhshan and the future of opium production and trade, as well as the evolution of drug control in Afghanistan under the Musahiban dynasty. Ultimately, the ban was launched because it allowed Daud to garner international praise and financial support, while enforcing eradication in an area inhabited by ethnic minorities ensured that the Afghan government's coercive strategy would not generate resistance from rural Pashtun tribes historically opposed to these types of state intervention.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 The International Society for Iranian Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abraham, Itty and Willem van Schendel. “Introduction,” in Illicit Flows and Criminal Things: States, Borders, and the Other Side of Globalization, edited by Itty Abraham and Willem van Schendel. Bloomington, Indiana: University of Indiana Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: A Political and Cultural History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Barfield, Thomas. The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Berridge, Virginia. “Victorian Opium Eating: Responses to Opiate Use in Nineteenth Century England.” Victorian Studies 21, no. 4 (Summer 1978): 437461.Google Scholar
Bewey-Taylor, David. The US and International Drug Control, 1909–1997. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2002.Google Scholar
Bradford, James. “Opium in a Time of Uncertainty: State Formation, Diplomacy, and Drug Control in Afghanistan During the Musahiban Dynasty, 1929–1978.” PhD diss., Northeastern University, 2013.Google Scholar
Bradsher, Henry. Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Dupree, Louis. Afghanistan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Franck, Peter. Afghanistan: Between East and West. Washington, DC: National Planning Association, 1960.Google Scholar
Gallant, Tony. “Brigandage, Piracy, Capitalism, and State Formation: Transnational Crime from a Historical World-Systems Perspective,” in States and Illegal Practices, edited by Heyman, Josiah, 2562. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1999.Google Scholar
Gregorian, Vartan. The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Mansfield, David. “Alternative Development in Afghanistan: The Failure of Quid Pro Quo.” Paper prepared for the International Conference on Alternative Development in Drug Control and Cooperation, Feldafing, January 7–12, 2002. Accessed May 7, 2012. http://www.davidmansfield.orgGoogle Scholar
Matthee, Rudi. The Pursuit of Pleasure. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
McAllister, William. Drug Diplomacy in the 20th Century: An International History. New York: Routledge, 2000.Google Scholar
McLaughlin, Gerald, and Quinn, Thomas. “Drug Control in Iran: A Legal and Historical Analysis.” Iowa Law Review 59, no. 3 (February 1974): 469524.Google Scholar
Newell, Richard. “Afghanistan: The Dangers of Cold War Generosity.” Middle East Journal 23, no. 2 (Spring 1969): 168176.Google Scholar
Newell, Richard. “The Prospects of State-building in Afghanistan.” In The State, Religion, and Ethnic Politics: Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan, edited by Banuazzi, Ali and Weiner, Myron, 104123. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Noorzoy, M. Siddieq. “Alternative Economic Systems for Afghanistan.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 15, no. 1 (February 1983): 2545. doi: 10.1017/S0020743800052399Google Scholar
Rubin, Barnett. The Fragmentation of Afghanistan. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Scott, James. Seeing Like a State. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Shahrani, M. Nazif. “State-Building and Social Fragmentation in Afghanistan.” In The State, Religion, and Ethnic Politics: Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan, edited by Banuazzi, Ali and Weiner, Myron, 2374. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Shahrani, M. Nazif Mohib. The Kirghiz and the Wakhi of Afghanistan. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1979.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. Coercion, Capital, and European States, AS 990–1990. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1990.Google Scholar
Tyrell, Ian. Reforming the World: The US Moral Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime. Afghanistan: Opium Survey 2011. New York: United Nations Publications, October 2011.Google Scholar
United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime. Afghanistan Opium Survey 2011. New York: United Nations Publications, December 2011.Google Scholar
US Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1954 (1955), 899902, table 1075.Google Scholar
World Health Organization, . “Technical Report Series, No. 131: Report of a Study Group on the Treatment and Character of Drug Addicts.” Geneva, 1957. Section II.Google Scholar