June 26 marks the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), nearly 312 million people worldwide use illicit drugs such as cocaine, cannabis, hallucinogens, opiates and sedative-hypnotics. In December 1987, the United Nations General Assembly decided to observe 26 June as the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. The United Nations is determined to help create an international society free of drug abuse. Each year, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) selects a theme for the day, and this year the theme is, 'Drug problems persist, new challenges emerge, innovative responses are needed.'

Pakistan faces multiple challenges as it combats narcotics trafficking, including a spike in violent extremism from the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Baloch separatist groups, instability in neighbouring Afghanistan, and an ever-evolving network of drug trafficking routes. The majority of narcotics produced in Afghanistan, namely heroin and opium, transit through Pakistan. While overland transit corridors link Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and India, officials assess that large quantities of drugs transit Pakistan's maritime domain with relative ease (International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), March 2025).

The latest World Drug Report 2025 paints a disturbing picture. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), an estimated 316 million people used drugs in 2023, compared with 246 million a decade earlier. Cannabis remained the most widely used drug, followed by opioids, amphetamines, cocaine and ecstasy. Drug use has increased by nearly 28 per cent during the past decade.

Even more alarming is the unprecedented expansion of the cocaine market. Global cocaine production reached a record level in 2023, while seizures, trafficking and consumption simultaneously reached historic highs. At the same time, synthetic drugs have transformed narcotics markets. Methamphetamine, amphetamine-type stimulants and synthetic opioids can now be manufactured almost anywhere, making enforcement far more difficult than in the era when illicit drugs depended primarily on agricultural cultivation.

These statistics compel us to ask a fundamental question: if the war on drugs has been underway for more than half a century, why are drug markets larger today than ever before?

The answer lies in understanding the political economy of narcotics. The modern narcotics economy differs in form but not in substance from the nineteenth-century opium trade. When Britain waged the Opium Wars against China between 1839 and 1860, the objective was not merely to sell a narcotic substance but to preserve a highly profitable commercial arrangement.

Nearly two centuries later, the principal actors and commodities may have changed, but the underlying economics remain remarkably similar. The extraordinary profits generated by addiction continue to create powerful incentives for criminal enterprises and, at times, for political actors willing to overlook the consequences.

Historically, drug trafficking has never been merely a criminal enterprise. It has been deeply intertwined with commerce, geopolitics and state........

© The Friday Times