NCJ Number
163871
Date Published
1995
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This paper provides an overview of Central Asian narcotics trafficking, both indigenous and foreign dimensions, and considers the status and future of those Central Asian security forces and resources intended to counter regional drug trafficking activities.
Abstract
The states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan -- which until the breakup of the Soviet Union constituted those republics collectively termed Soviet Central Asia -- have rugged and remote areas that have long been associated with narcotics use and smuggling activities of various types. By the mid-1980's the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, fundamental political changes within the Soviet Union, and a growing market for drugs throughout the Soviet Union have helped to transform traditional, limited narcotics cultivation and cross-border smuggling activities into what Soviet authorities recognized as a growing law enforcement problem with nationwide implications. By the late 1980's, ineffective Soviet efforts to stem Central Asian drug-crop cultivation and trafficking, as well as the increased use of republic territory as a transit area for Southwest Asian narcotics, further spotlighted the five republics as a central component of the growing Soviet drug problem. Whether the new Commonwealth of Independent States will prove to be an adequate framework for working out new joint law enforcement relationships between Soviet successor states remains to be seen. In the meantime, some efforts have been made by Central Asian states to work out local and international cooperation programs. Specialists from the region expect that illegal drug cultivation and distribution will increase. The potential involvement of foreign drug trafficking groups is apparently greater now in at least some successor states. 53 notes