Date of Submission
Spring 2021
Academic Program
Political Studies
Project Advisor 1
Frederic Hof
Abstract/Artist's Statement
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 in these provinces.
Open Access Agreement
Open Access
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Cameron, Jack, "Chasing Gold: Analyzing Opium Cultivation in Afghanistan and its Alternatives" (2021). Senior Projects Spring 2021. 128.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2021/128
This work is protected by a Creative Commons license. Any use not permitted under that license is prohibited.