Developing CounterCounter---NarcoticsNarcotics PolicPolicyy in Central Asia Legal and Political Dimensions Kairat Osmonaliev SILK ROAD PAPER January 2005 Developing CounterCounter---NarcoticsNarcotics Policy in Central AsiaAsia:::: Legal and Political Dimensions Kairat Osmonaliev © 2004 Silk Road Studies Program and Central AsiaAsia---CaucasusCaucasus Institute Joint Project on Narcotics, Organized Crime and Security in Eurasia [email protected] “Developing Counter-Narcotics Policy in Central Asia: Legal and Political Dimensions” is a Policy Paper published by the Joint Project on Narcotics, Organized Crime and Security in Eurasia. This research initiative is conducted by the Silk Road Studies Program, Uppsala University, and the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, Johns Hopkins University-SAIS. It is authored by Kairat Osmonaliev. Dr. Kairat Osmonaliev was a visiting Fellow at the Silk Road Studies Program, Department of East European Studies, Uppsala University, in Spring and Summer 2004. Prior to his stay at the Program, Dr. Osmonaliev was Chief of the Legal and International Cooperation Section at Kyrgyzstan’s Drug Control Agency. He also served for three years as Chief of the Department of Analysis at Kyrgyzstan’s State Commission of Drug Control. Concurrently, Dr. Osmonaliev holds a Chair of Criminal Law at Chui University. He received his Ph.D. degree (Kand. Nauk) in Jurisprudence from the Academy of Management under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Moscow. His Dissertation theme was Criminal Legal Measures on Illicit Drug Trafficking Prevention. He holds the military rank of Major. © Silk Road Studies Program and Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, January 2005 ISBN: 91-85031-03-8 Printed in Canada Distributed in North America by: The Central Asia-Caucasus Institute Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies 1619 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20036, U.S.A. Tel. +1-202-663-7723; Fax. +1-202-663-7785 E-mail: [email protected] Distributed in Europe by: The Silk Road Studies Program Uppsala University Box 514, SE-75120 Uppsala Sweden Tel. +46-18-471-2217; Fax. +46-18-106397 E-mail: [email protected] Table of Contents Preface ................................................................................................ ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 1 Executive Summary................................................................................................ ....................................................................................................................................................................44 IntroductionIntroduction..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................99 1. The Current Drug Situation in Central Asia ...................................................................................... ............................................1212 1.1.Trends in the Drug Situation in Central Asia........................................................................12 1.2 Drug Situation Forecast for Central Asia ............................................................................. 23 2. Conceptual, Legal and Organizational Aspects of CounterCounter---narcoticsnarcotics Policy in the Central Asian States................................................................................................ ...............................................................................................................................3333 2.1 Conceptual Models of Counter-narcotics Combat and its Impact on the CAR Drug Control Policy..............................................................................................................................33 2.2 Legal Issues and the Organizational and Resource Basis of Counter-Narcotics Policy......... 45 2.2.1. Countering drug trafficking ............................................................................................ 48 2.2.2. Preventing illicit drug usage ........................................................................................... 48 2.2.3. Treating and rehabilitating drug addicts ....................................................................... 49 2.2.4. Regulating the legal usage of drugs................................................................................ 49 2.2.5. Expanding international drug control cooperation ...................................................... 49 3. SubSub---regionalregional CounterCounter---narcoticsnarcotics Policy and CounterCounter---NarcoticsNarcotics Cooperation in Central Asia ................................................................................................ .............................................................................................................................................................................. 56 3.1 Silk Road diplomacy and Sub-regional counter-narcotics policy ............................................ 56 3.1.1. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization...................................................................... 58 3.1.2. Central Asian Organization for Economic Cooperation..............................................59 3.1.3. Economic Cooperation Organization............................................................................. 60 3.1.4. Overview ............................................................................................................................61 3.2 Counter-Narcotics Strategies of International Organizations and External Powers ............64 3.2.1. UN Office on Drugs and Crime ................................................................. 64 3.2.2. The World Health Organization ....................................................................................72 3.2.3. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ........................................72 3.2.4. The European Union .......................................................................................................74 3.2.5. The United States of America.........................................................................................75 3.2.6. Overview........................................................................................................................... 77 3.3 Improving Regional Drug Control Cooperation .................................................................... 77 4. ConclusionConclusion.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 87 5. BibliographyBibliography................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 90 Preface Among the array of challenges facing the Central Asian region, illicit drugs have since the mid-1990s gradually risen to prominence. With continuously increasing opium production in Afghanistan and an increasing share of that production transited northward through Central Asia, the impact of the drug trade on the region is only worsening. The implications of the drug trade are multi-faceted: through addiction, epidemics, and related crime, it affects public health and societal security. Through its profit margin and sheer financial weight, it affects the economies of the region. By exacerbating and deepening political corruption and due to ensuing damage to the national and international legitimacy of governments, it affects political stability. Finally, through its role in the financing of terrorism and insurgency, it affects national security in the most basic, military sense of the term. Presently, illicit drugs therefore pose a clear and present danger to the security of states, societies and individuals in this region. In response, the states of the region have gradually tried to cope with the multiple threats posed by the illicit drug trade. But on their own, Central Asia’s states do not have either the institutional structure, expertise, experience or the resources of developed countries – who themselves have often been at a loss in devising effective strategies to deal with the drug trade and its consequences. As meaningful regional cooperative mechanisms are missing in the region, the states of Central Asia have chosen different paths in their conceptual and organizational approaches to the problem, while no state has fully arrived at a complete strategy for its counter-narcotics policy. Without such a strategy, the efforts of individual states are unlikely to succeed. The illicit drug trade being a transnational phenomenon by nature, any successful response to it, however well formulated and implemented, cannot be limited to national boundaries. As in other regions of the world, only an international response to an international