Alternative development / Développement alternatif

Finding an Alternative to Illicit Opium Production in Afghanistan, and Elsewhere

Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy / 2011 / International Journal of Environmental Studies.

Prohibition attempts have failed for over a century, as the case of Afghanistan shows. There are many and complex reasons for this. Illicit opium production has benefited from synergies between war economies and drug economies, in Afghanistan and elsewhere. It has also thrived on economic underdevelopment and poverty. Part of the problem is that illicit opium production largely outlives war and that economic development can only occur in countries and regions where peace prevails. What is needed to reduce poppy cultivation is broad and equitable economic development. Ignoring the causes of opium production or making them worse by increasing poverty through forced eradication, will compromise antidrug policies and stabilisation efforts.

Afghanistan and the global failure of counternarcotics

Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy / 2008 / Afghanistan Info.

The failure to address Afghanistan’s opium production is not surprising. About 60 years of Asian opium bans have demonstrated that drug supply reduction is very rarely effective and, in fact, is most often counterproductive.

Morocco said to produce nearly half of the world’s hashish supply

Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy / 2005 / Jane's Intelligence Review.

In the first of two reports on hashish production and trafficking in the Rif area of Morocco, Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy examines the cultural, political and economic factors that have engendered cannabis cultivation in the area.

The dangers of opium eradication in Asia

Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy / 2005 / Jane's Intelligence Review?

Campaigns to eradicate opium in Afghanistan, Myanmar and Laos risk being counterproductive in the mid-term as prices are driven up and rural poverty is exacerbated, leading to displacement of production rather than eradication. Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy examines the results of recent programmes.

Opium ban risks greater insecurity for Wa in Myanmar

Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy / 2004 / Jane's Intelligence Review.

The United Wa State Party has pledged to crack down on opium production in northeast Myanmar. However, as Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy reports, ridding the area of opium without providing alternative income sources could be devastating for the majority of the Wa population.

The ironies of Afghan opium production

Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy / 2003 / Asia Times.

Driven by war, poverty and chaos, Afghanistan’s opium production in the wake of the ouster of the Taliban regime is dramatically increasing and seems to be the only avenue by which many Afghans can make a living. Indeed, in a country already characterized by a tortured landscape and harsh climatic conditions, let alone generations of war, the commercial production of opium has been the only means of subsistence available for many peasants in eastern Afghanistan.