SELL AFGHAN POPPIES FOR MEDICINE: DION

Wants Ottawa To Back Pilot Project To Turn Opium Into Medicinal Painkillers

OTTAWA-Canada should back a pilot project to market Afghanistan's
opium production - blamed for fuelling a deadly insurgency - as legal
medicinal painkillers, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion says.

In a major foreign policy speech yesterday, Dion called for a new
strategy for the Afghan mission to put a greater focus on diplomacy
and development.

And one key plank is a plan to cope with the country's poppy crop,
which has become a mainstay of the economy.

"If we do not start to think creatively about the problem of the drug
economy, the situation will never get better," Dion said in a text of
his Montreal speech.

Dion said Canada should help fund a project proposed by the Senlis
Council, an international security and development policy think-tank,
to license poppy crops for use as codeine and morphine in the developing world.

"Such a licensed cultivation would ... offer farmers a real and
profitable alternative to the heroin trade," he said.

Dion, who also urged a crackdown on illegal processing labs, later
conceded the drug strategy is not a sure bet.

"I know it is very risky what they are proposing. I am not naive. But
what is not risky in Afghanistan? We need to try this risk and see
the result," Dion said in an interview after his noon-hour speech.

During an Ottawa visit last September, Afghan President Hamid Karzai
warned that the "menace" of narcotics was as serious a threat as
terrorism and could undermine the country's economic progress.

"If we do not destroy poppies in Afghanistan, poppies will destroy
us," Karzai said.

Current efforts to eradicate the poppy crop have been controversial
since destitute farmers are often left with no income to support
their families.

In addition to tackling the drug trade, Dion said Canada must do more
to ensure Afghans get necessary vaccinations. And he said the country
needs help to rebuild irrigation networks destroyed in decades of violence.

In his speech, Dion said a Liberal government would withdraw Canada's
2,500 troops from Kandahar in 2009, but left the door open for
soldiers to go elsewhere in the country.

"I will say unequivocally that a Liberal government led by me will
not extend Canada's combat mission in Kandahar beyond February 2009,"
Dion said.

"We need a new government that will be able to say very clearly 'Yes,
we end the mission in 2009 .. help us in the meantime and we need a
country to replace us because we are serious,'" he said in the interview.

The federal Conservatives have yet to say what Canada's role might be
in Afghanistan after the current military commitment ends in February 2009.

Noting that just 20 per cent of Canada's aid funding is being spent
in Kandahar, Dion said a Liberal government would push for a "real
effort to win the hearts and minds of Afghans.

"It is very difficult to keep the confidence of the population if
they don't identify the Canadian forces with improvement for the
quality of life," he said.