[a chapter from The Afghanistan-Pakistan Theater: Militant Islam, Security, and Stability by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, pdf], The Brookings Institution, 20 May 2010

EXCERPT: " [...] Let's imagine that eradication could somehow miraculously and rapidly wipe out opium cultivation in Afghanistan, and the campaign was executed in such a way that made replanting within the country impossible. [...] By far the worst scenario from the U.S. strategic perspective would be the shift of poppy cultivation to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), or even Pakistan's Punjab province. For over twenty years, Pakistan has been a major heroin refining and smuggling hub. It has an extensive hawala system that has been used for moving drug profits. Today, these territories also have extensive and well organized Salafi insurgent and terrorist groups that seek to limit the reach of the Pakistani state and topple Pakistan's government. A relocation of poppy cultivation there would be highly detrimental to U.S. interests, since it would contribute to a critical undermining of the Pakistani state and fuel jihadist insurgency. Such a shift would not only increase profit possibilities for Pakistani belligerents, but also provide them with significant political capital by allowing them to become significant local employers: FATA, NWFP, Baluchistan, and Punjab are all areas with minimal employment opportunities."

Read the full [pdf].

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Pakistan faces a serious drug problem, 12 January 2010
Narco-jihad: Drug trafficking and security in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 8 January 2010