Drugs / Drogues | www.geopium.org

Taliban’s Drug Dilemma: Opium Production vs. International Recognition

Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy / 1999 / The Central Asia - Caucasus Analyst.

The Taliban government sees its long awaited international recognition more than ever compromised by the dramatic increase in Afghanistan’s opium production that has literally exploded in 1999. The rise of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan since 1994 has coincided with this increased production. Afghanistan's standing as the world's leading opium producer will only worsen the situation of the Taliban government on the international and even national scenes.

Yaa Baa: Production, trafic et consommation de méthamphétamine en Asie du Sud-Est continentale

Pierre-Arnaud Chiucy & Joël Meissonnier / 2002 / Irasec.

Yaa baa, "le médicament qui rend fou". En Thaïlande le surnom de la méthamphétamine sonne comme un avertissement, mais il n'a pas dissuadé des centaines de milliers de Thaïlandais, jeunes pour la plupart, de s'y adonner avec plus ou moins de retenue. "Drogue de travail" ou "drogue de loisir", il s'agit d'un véritable phénomène de société qui n'est pas étranger aux évolutions économiques et aux mutations culturelles qu'à connu le royaume au cours de ces dernières décennies. Ce livre s'efforce de donner des explications à un engouement qui touche également d'autres pays de la région. Il replace la consommation de méthamphétamine dans les logiques du narcotrafic dont les ressorts sont à rechercher aux marges orientales de la Birmanie, en plein cœur du Triangle d'Or.

Southeast Asia’s Thriving Drug Trade

Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy / 2011 / World Politics Review.

From the early 1950s until 1990, when Afghanistan’s opium production surpassed that of Myanmar, most of the world’s illicit opium originated in mainland Southeast Asia. This is partly because the region’s rugged hills and mountains, heavy monsoon rains and lack of transport infrastructures have long protected rebel armies and illegal opium poppy cultivation from the writ of central governments and anti-drug agencies. Myanmar’s turbulent political history and internal wars since its independence in 1948 also contributed significantly to Asia’s long reign as the global leader in illicit opium production, as the opium economy and the war economy clearly nurtured one another.

Introduction (dossier drogue et politique)

Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy & Guillermo Aureano / 2001 / Cemoti.

Ce dossier est le fruit de réflexions engagées au Centre d'études et de recherches internationales (CERI) dans le cadre d'un séminaire animé par Semih Vaner. Les réunions se sont déroulées d'octobre 1999 à décembre 2000, lorsqu'une journée d'étude a réuni la plupart des participants, qui ont ainsi pu communiquer les résultats de leurs recherches à un public plus large. C'est le vaste thème des relations entre drogue et politique qui constituait la problématique centrale de ces discussions. Si le terme «drogue » désigne de prime abord un produit, nos travaux ont plutôt porté sur les enjeux de pouvoir qui conditionnent actuellement la production, le commerce et la consommation de ce type de substances illicites. Autrement dit, nous nous sommes attachés plus à examiner les dimensions politiques de la drogue elle même que les activités proprement économiques qui caractérisent sa production ou sa diffusion, qu'elles relèvent de l'agriculture, du trafic ou de l'usage.

Illegal Trades Across National Borders of Mainland Southeast Asia

Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy / 2010 / The Trade in Human Beings for Sex in Southeast Asia.

Mainland Southeast Asia, or Indochina—as it has long been known due to its position between India and China—has been marked by decades of modern trafficking in illegal goods. Illegal trades in Mainland Southeast Asia are numerous, extremely diverse, and most likely increasingly complex. Of course, human trafficking and drug trafficking are two of the most prominent illegal trades of the area: human trafficking, in relation to the huge regional prostitution market it feeds—Thailand being worldwide infamous for that reason; and drug trafficking, in relation to opium and heroin produced in bulk in the ill-famed Golden Triangle. Complexity arises from the fact that human trafficking and drug trafficking can be said to be linked in some places and to some extent, whether drug consumption by prostitutes—and by many of their clients—is concerned or whether economic havoc created by excessively brutal and rapid eradication of illicit crops pushes women into prostitution. However, as we will see, complexity is even increased by the fact that many other illegal trades feed off these two major trafficking activities and their existing, and sometimes congruous, networks. Some of these trades may, at some point, contribute to one another; they may also proceed, to some extent, from propitious specific regional dynamics (trafficking in drugs and arms in the context of armed conflicts for example). It is this great diversity and complexity of illegal trading of Mainland Southeast Asia that this paper deals with, focusing on two of its most pervasive phenomenon: drug trafficking and human trafficking.

Opium. Uncovering the politics of the poppy

Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy / 2010 /Harvard University Press.

The book sets out to expose the politics of opium. In particular it explores the world’s two major regions for illicit production of opium and heroin – the Golden Triangle of Burma, Laos and Thailand and the Golden Crescent of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. These remote mountainous regions of Southeast and Southwest Asia produce more than 90 per cent of the world’s illicit opium. The book reveals how, when and why illicit opium production emerged and what sustains it. The text exposes the real drivers of the modern day trade in opium and shows why a century of international effort, and forty years of a US-led war on drugs, have failed to eradicate it.