ABSTRACT
The politics of drug production in Pakistan has both internal and external dimensions. Internal factors include the divergent administrative systems in north west frontier province, arguably a main cause of drug production there, the role of politicians and political parties, and narco-politics, as a result of which laws are corruptly flouted by those who make and administer them. External factors include the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the unending civil war there, which was originally in good part financed by narcotics with the support of the western powers, and the Iranian revolution. Pakistan is a post-colonial, overdeveloped bureaucratic state, where economic and political institutions are weak but bureaucrats strong, and where state and society are far apart. Pakistani politics have traditionally been dominated by landed aristocracy and feudal lords. Iran, which has been producing opium for centuries, has a large addicted population whose need is satisfied by heroin from neighbouring countries.
