CROP SUBSTITUTION: AN UNEXPLORED STRATEGY TOWARDS
TACKLING THE SCOURGE OF ILLICIT DRUG PRODUCTION IN
AFRICA.

The major internationally recognized illicit substance of abuse cultivated in Africa, particularly the West African sub-region, is marijuana. The cultivation, production and trafficking in marijuana is thus, for most Africans, the gateway into the enterprise of illicit drug cultivation and trafficking.

Nationals of countries in the West African sub-region, or more appropriately put, persons holding Travelling Passports of West African countries, constitute a sizeable proportion of suspected couriers involved with international trafficking of illicit drugs into Europe and the Americas.

It is in cognizance of the foregoing that it is pertinent that global efforts be harnessed to ensure the minimization, and probable eradication, of practices, enterprises and infrastructure that give rise to illicit drug cultivation and trafficking in Africa.

In some areas of the West African sub-region, communities in their entirety have been known to be engaged in the cultivation of marijuana leaves. Some families are wholly dependent on the proceeds of their marijuana farms for their daily subsistence. These families see marijuana cultivation, primarily, as a means of survival.

In some other instances, poor soil potency has rendered it futile to cultivate age-old food crops (such as yams, cassava, beans etc). To compound the problem of these farmers, they lack the resources to 'switch-over' and invest in enhanced species of seedlings of the food crops they are familiar with. Such small scale farmers/farm communities are easy prey to 'barons' in the business of illicit drug trafficking, who quickly introduce the hapless farmers to the marijuana crop, with promises of seemingly incredulous profit margins. Some of these rural farmers, usually unschooled and illiterate, are, at the outset, oblivious to the criminal nature of their new vocation.

In Nigeria, forinstance, there have been instances of whole extended families (comprised of fathers, wives, uncles, auntie's and children, some as young as 7years old) being apprehended and paraded (by our law enforcement/anti-narcotic agencies) as criminal producers of illicit substances – particularly marijuana. The irony is usually that such rural farm families do not make any effort to flee from the arresting officers. These rural farming-families have no where else to run to - they are stuck to their farms for life.

In the above described scenario, which is usually the norm, well articulated crop substitution programs will obviously achieve more positive results than merely punishing hapless people who are only interested in surviving.

When it is realised that over 70% of suspects detained by federal anti-narcotic agents in Nigeria are persons involved, in one way or the other, with marijuana cultivation, the exigency of instituting a credible and effective crop substitution regime to tackle the problem of illicit marijuana cultivation becomes more apparent.

In the course of the past 3 years, our organisation, People Against Drug Dependence & Ignorance (PADDI) has been involved in a series of advocacy initiatives geared towards ensuring that palliative measures consisting of Crop Substitution, backed by necessary financial (or in-kind) support is extended to indigent farmers engaged in the cultivation of marijuana. PADDI had an opportunity to raise the issue of the absence of crop substitution programs for illicit drug producers in the course of the release of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) Annual Report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Lagos, Nigeria.

At the occasion, which had in attendance Dr. Phillip Emafo, a Nigerian and Chair of the INCB, the Chairman of the Nigerian National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and the UNODC Country Representative for Nigeria in attendance, it was worrying to realize that no plausible reasons were presented for the failure of the international community to explore and apply crop substitution techniques as a strategy to curtail illicit production of drugs in Africa.

Our initiatives is predicated on the fact that farmers who engage in illicit cultivation of marijuana purely as a means of survival, deserve an opportunity to cultivate alternative crop, prior to the hammer of prosecution and incarceration being wielded on such indigent farmers.

Our idea, Crop Substitution, is admittedly not novel. Crop Substitution is a recognized and successful
strategy adopted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and a plethora of domestic authorities/governments to curtail the production of coca (cocaine) and opium (heroin) in such diverse countries as Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

Most unfortunately, and for as yet inexplicable reasons, the UNODC and relevant domestic governments have not deemed it fit to adapt Crop Substitution techniques to the African environment as a strategy to combat illicit drug production.

Is it that the African farmer does not deserve an opportunity to substitute an illicit crop with legitimate produce, which has the potential for offering him/her commensurate, if not higher, pecuniary gains? Does the African farmer not deserve the same treatment as his colleagues in Latin America and Asia where the international community invests heavily to ensure the eradication, or at least minimization, of the acreage under illicit drug cultivation?

The intention of this piece should not be misconstrued as an attempt to create the picture of 'an innocent victim' for all persons involved in the illicit cultivation of marijuana in Africa. Far from it. There is no doubt that there exists out there, in various remote corners of the African continent, thousands of greed-induced farmers involved with the illicit cultivation of marijuana. It is our believe and opinion that the full weight of the law should be brought to bear on such characters.

Our concern in advocating for adoption of crop substitution mechanisms as a strategy in tackling illicit drug production in Africa, is borne out of the realization that 'ignorance' and 'abject poverty', a lethal combination anywhere, is much in abundance amongst rural farming communities on the African continent. By moving hastily to penalize illiterate rural farmers engaged inn illicit drug production, without adequate sensitization, education and alternatives being proffered, a miscarriage of justice might be effected.

Eze Eluchie (Attorney-at-Law)
Executive Director
People Against Drug Dependence & Ignorance (PADDI)
P. O. Box 4085, Surulere
Lagos
Nigeria

E-mail: paddingr@yahoo.com
Website: www.paddi.globalink.org

Affiliated with EURAD