Can the United States and Russia Jointly Combat Afghan Heroin?

By Franz-Stefan Gady

April 16, 2015

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Heroin seized by by the Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan

A new report wants Moscow and Washington to work together to fight drug trafficking. 

The EastWest Institute has released a new report by a working group of Russian and U.S. experts on how the United States and Russia can jointly combat narcotrafficking out of Afghanistan. The joint U.S.-Russia working group previously has released two reports, “Afghan Narcotrafficking: A Joint Threat Assessment” in 2013 and “Afghan Narcotrafficking: Post-2014 Scenarios” in February 2015.

The paper points out that Afghanistan accounts for 80 percent of global opium and 74 percent of illicit opium production worldwide – 90 percent of which is trafficked out of the country. Afghan heroin has created an addiction crisis in Russia, whereas for the United States the growing Afghan drug trade is further testimony to the failed decade long U.S.-led state-building exercise in the country.

The current publication comes at a time of increased tensions between the United States and Russia over Ukraine, which is detrimentally affecting joint efforts elsewhere in the world. “(…) [C]ooperation between the United States and Russia may not come easily even when confronting a common threat. Fallout from the Ukraine crisis has damaged the bilateral relationship to an extent that will take years to repair,” the study notes pessimistically.