Political Economy Commons^™

Chasing Gold: Analyzing Opium Cultivation In Afghanistan And Its Alternatives, Jack Cameron

Senior Projects Spring 2021

This paper reviews the history of counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan from 1950 to the present. Each chapter will specifically examine a program or strategy used to suppress the cultivation of opium. It will then derive both the successes and failures of each moment in history. Using these lessons, the essay will lastly examine saffron as an alternative to opium. Though saffron has a high start-up cost and sizeable time investment, as the essay argues, these costs are actually worth it. Moreover, that these costs are most likely to be fulled in areas cultivating opium as poverty is at its lowest …