Call to declare war on Afghan poppy fields

With growing drug profits flowing to the Taleban, western governments are being urged to use a two-pronged approach: combining their efforts on anti-narcotics and anti-terrorism.

Thomas Schweich, a senior US state department official, has briefed NATO ambassadors in Brussels and General Dan McNeill, the top NATO general in Afghanistan, on the need for increased military co-operation on the drug front.

"Counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism are effectively the same thing," said Mr Schweich."I think everybody recognises that with the Taleban receiving funding from narcotics, much more so than in the past, that there has to be a co-ordinated effort."

Afghanistan accounts for more than 90 per cent of the world's heroin supply, and a significant portion of the profits from the 1.57 billion trade are thought to reach the Taleban, who tax and protect poppy farmers and drug-runners.

Campaigners are calling for a radical approach to tackle the poppy boom, including buying the entire crop to prevent the flood of heroin into Europe and the US.

The Senlis Council, a group based in Europe and Afghanistan, proposes legalising and managing the poppy crops, turning them into medicines such as morphine. It wants to adapt a programme that largely eliminated heroin production in Turkey in the 1970s.

The group is proposing pilot projects under which morphine factories would be set up in Afghan villages and monitored by village elders and outside groups. The factories could provide employment and income for the villages - and plough some profits into alternative industries.

Military commanders who viewed drugs as a minor irritant in 2002, when poppy production was much lower, have reassessed the importance of the vast fields of red and white poppies their soldiers drive past in security convoys, a western official said yesterday.

Although it is too early to say definitively what this year's crop will be, it is estimated the harvest will cover up to 482,000 acres - compared with a UN figure of 407,000 acres last year.

General Khodaidad, Afghanistan's deputy minister for counter-narcotics, said: "The problem is a lack of security, a lack of governance, the Taleban, drug-lords, warlords and corruption. It's a bad list with very bad results."

The US is pushing Afghanistan to spray poppy fields with a crop-killing herbicide, much as is done with coca in Colombia, and develop new sources of income for the poppy farmers.

But some Afghan cabinet members have expressed reservations about the impact on legitimate crops and livestock. It is feared such a move would make a deteriorating situation even worse.

NATO and US forces in Afghanistan rely heavily on intelligence and support from Afghans. Resentment is rising as more civilians are killed or hurt in operations against Taleban forces.

Just the threat of spraying poppy fields is increasing that anger, as spraying could destroy the livelihoods of an estimated three million farmers, driving them into the arms of the Taleban.

While poppy production is falling in north and central Afghanistan, where security is stronger, that decline is expected to be overwhelmed by a surge in production in the southern province of Helmand, the most violent region in the country and the scene of heavy fighting this year.

Helmand - where British troops are responsible for security - is expected to account for more than 50 per cent of Afghanistan's poppy crop for the first time, meaning the province by itself would be the world's largest opium producing region. Ronald Neumann, who recently stepped down as US ambassador to Afghanistan, said that opium production in the region had seriously undermined success in other parts of the country.

"What you see is that where you have a reasonable level of peace and a little bit of government, you can start to make progress against the poppy. Where you are in the middle of the insurgency, it's much harder."

What's to be done? Two views

DESTROY IT

BUYING up the Afghanistan opium crop sounds like a good idea: if you can't beat them, then join them. But what would be the impact of a policy that involved the UK and United States governments negotiating with those who supply 90 per cent of the world's heroin?

Each and every year you would have to agree the same thing, no matter what the increase in price. "If you don't pay, I sell to the drugs trade," would be the simple message underlying negotiations.

In agreeing to that deal, you would be sending out a powerful message to every country in the region that, if they wanted a guaranteed income, then all they need to do is start farming opium.

Far from stemming the drugs trade, you could find yourself stimulating its growth.

Further, if you persuaded a local farmer to sell you his opium crop, you would be placing him at enormous risk as the gangs who run drug production are not going to watch their market disappear.

They are going to use whatever force necessary to ensure that no matter who buys the drugs, the money goes into their pockets.

Yes, we need to encourage local farmers to produce non-opium harvests. But we also have to show those committed to heroin production that they are going to pay a heavy price.

• Neil McKeganey is Professor of Drug Misuse Research at the University of Glasgow.

USE IT FOR MEDICINE

THE news that Afghanistan's opium poppy production could rise yet again this year is proof that the hugely damaging counter-narcotics policy of poppy crop eradication in the country is completely ineffective.

Poppy crop eradication has been pivotal in hindering stability, security and development in Afghanistan's poorest areas, destroying the one crop that serves as the main income to millions of Afghan people.

This has led to widespread disillusionment among the local populations, which has badly undermined the Karzai government.

It is therefore time for a new counter-narcotics measure.

A poppy-for-medicine model, where village-cultivated plants would be transformed into codeine and morphine tablets, could help Afghanistan diversify its economy and become an international trade partner.

By controlling the entire production process - from seed to tablet in the villages, farmers and their communities would be given the financial incentive necessary to sever links with the insurgency.

As the revenues from all medicine sales would remain in the villages, communities would be given an economic opportunity they would want to protect - particularly against drug traffickers, and alternative development would be possible.

• Emmanuel Reinert is the executive director of the Senlis Council.