The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is a group you are probably going to be hearing a lot more of in the coming years.

Basically it is a political club of six countries (Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) that was formed in 2001 on the back of the Shanghai Five grouping which in turn was based on increasing military cooperation between all of those powers (Uzbekistan joined in 2001).

The SCO is being hailed by some analysts as a potential rival to NATO, though that is realistically many years off. In the meantime, the SCO is basing their growing influence on military cooperation which includes joint efforts to combat terrorism.

That’s where the SCO comes into contact with the world of narcotics.

Drug trafficking is one of the main financial staples of many terrorist groups. Groups from Myanmar to Colombia to Turkey derive a large part of their income from trafficking narcotics - especially opiates and heroin, though also other drugs. A large part of the world’s supply of drugs actually passes through the territory of the member states of the SCO or their close neighbours.

With terrorists and their associates moving narcotics through their territory, the members of the SCO were justifiably concerned about the impact on their own stability.

It was no particular surprise then that the SCO chose to go after the source of the funding of these groups by attacking their means of finance. In April of this year, they decided to set up a joint institute to intensify their efforts related to cross border drug crimes.

But here is where it starts to get messy.

Of the current SCO members, 100% of them have their own problems with internal seperatist movements. As part of their battle to combat the seperatists, rhetoric involving words like “terrorists” and “drug traffickers” are very often bandied about (sometimes justified and sometimes not) in relation to the groups.

It is very likely then, that the formation of a drug crime body within the SCO will aid and complement the existing aparatus of suppression of those seperatist groups in addition to their more legitimate targets.

When it comes time to call on each others’ aid (and possibly internation aid) in the suppression of those groups then the emotional rhetoric associated with the drug trade will ease and possibly expedite the process.

Once again, the issue of drugs will become caught up in the reality of political expediency.