WORLDWIDE WAR ON DRUGS LAGGING, STATE DEPARTMENT SAYS

WASHINGTON - The United States said Thursday that top anti-terror
allies Afghani-stan, Pakistan and Colombia had fallen short in the war
on drugs despite enhanced counter-narcotics efforts, It also
criticized perennial foes Iran, North Korea and Venezuela for not
cooperating. The State Department also noted backsliding in some key
Latin American nations like Bolivia while it praised improved
performances by Mexico and Asian transshipment points China and Thailand.

In its annual global survey of the drug war, the department said
massive opium-poppy production in Afghanistan, long the world's top
producer of the main ingredient for heroin, continued to pose a major
threat. "Afghanistan's huge drug trade undercuts efforts to rebuild
the economy and develop a strong democratic government based on the
rule of law," the department said in the 2007 International Narcotic
Control Strategy Report. "There is strong evidence that narcotics
trafficking is linked to the Taliban insurgency. These links between
drug traffickers and anti-government forces threaten regional
stability," the department said. It added that corruption and security
conditions hinder efforts to combat Afghan poppy production that shot
up 59 percent to a record 5,644 tons from 2005 to 2006.

"More must be done," Anne Patterson, assistant secretary of state for
international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, told reporters.
The report stressed that Afghan President Hamid Karzai remained
committed to reducing the harvest but Patterson said that results
remained "insufficient."

Across the border in Pakistan exists a major transit point for opiates
and hashish, where Taliban and al-Qaida operatives are also believed
to operate, the State Department said. It said it believed the
government there had launched several promising new anti-narcotics
initiatives. Iran is attempting to deal with a domestic
drug-consumption surge but has yet to enact or enforce laws to
decrease demand that has resulted in what the report said "can only be
called an epidemic of opiate abuse.