A hub for drugs

Bringing ANF up to speed is very least that can be done to counter this menace, and sooner govt wakes up, the better

A startling fact emerged at a hearing of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that is looking into the affairs of the national Antinarcotics Force (ANF). There are approximately 1.5 million opiate-derivative addicts in Pakistan and they consume 1,000 kgs of heroin daily. Startling as that may be, it is dwarfed by the revelation that the ANF has 2,600 staff members, but only 1,600 of them are engaged in the business of countering drug trafficking and the rest are peons, clerks, drivers and ‘helpers’. Set that against the gazetted staffing for the ANF being 3,148, and it is clear that Pakistan is falling far short of where it ought to be in the battle to counter the trade in drugs, both national and international.

Over 43 per cent of drugs trafficked globally are trafficked through Pakistan, a reality hardly likely to endear the country to the international community that are the unhappy recipients of the drugs that pass through the Land of the Pure. Afghanistan is the origin of the majority of the opioids that move through, but locally grown opium poppies make their own contribution. The ANF is desperately overstretched, and made that point to the PAC, saying that it was having difficulty covering Multan airport that has recently opened for international flights. It is of note that the ANF covers 13 international airports and three seaports. With domestic consumption rising and there being no diminution in poppy-growing in Afghanistan where it is a major Taliban revenue source, the drug producers and smugglers are enjoying a hey-day. Drug money is laundered into real estate both here and abroad, and underwrites other criminal activity. There is an anti-narcotics policy, which was formulated in 2013, designed to reduce supply and demand, as well as seeking international cooperation, but it appears to have had little impact. The drug trade is one of the world’s most profitable criminal activities, and one of the least well-resourced or effectively fought. Bringing the ANF up to speed is the very least that can be done to counter this menace, and the sooner the government wakes up to this, the better.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 27^th, 2015.

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