TALIBAN'S ERADICATION OF POPPIES IS CONVULSING OPIUM MARKET

UNITED NATIONS, June 12 -- The unexpected success of the Taliban in
Afghanistan in eradicating three-quarters of the world's crop of opium
poppies in one season is leading experts to ask where production is likely
to spring up next.

The director of the United Nations Drug Control Program, Pino Arlacchi,
said there was no chance that opium from other sources would compensate
this year for the loss of Afghan crops, and the prices of opium and heroin
will rise substantially, with opium already worth five to seven times its
usual price. His program helped convince the Taliban that opium is a
disgrace to Islam.

The chairman of the Central Asia Institute at Johns Hopkins, Frederick
Starr, said the West, especially Europe, had been inexplicably slow in
recognizing developments in Afghanistan. "The reduction is probably the
most dramatic event in the history of illegal drug markets, not only in
scale, but also in the fact that it was done domestically, without
international assistance," he said. He added that Europe, where most Afghan
heroin was consumed, had been "stunningly dysfunctional" in helping Afghan
farmers who have sacrificed livelihoods and in moving to prevent new fields
from springing up in other poor countries.

United Nations narcotics officials are looking at three regions that may be
tempted -- Myanmar, Pakistan and Central Asia.

In an interview from the drug agency headquarters in Vienna, Mr. Arlacchi
said he was skeptical about including Myanmar, formerly Burma, because
Thailand and China have put tremendous pressure on the military junta there
to control narcotics production. He said the ethnic groups in northern
Myanmar who once were the largest poppy producers have instead turned to
making chemical compounds. American experts agree that the greater problem
now is synthetic drugs like ecstasy, which are becoming increasingly
popular among young Asians.

In Pakistan, Mr. Arlacchi said, the government, working with the United
Nations, has completed one of its most successful eradication programs over
the last two decades. "Production is down to almost zero in the last few
years," he said.

Central Asia, he said, has the most potential for poppy production. The
United Nations has been working there with limited funds to cut down
trafficking in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. In the
last four months, more than two tons of heroin have been seized on the
Tajikistan-Afghanistan border.

"But even if in the long term this reduction of supply is a major success,
it will be sustainable only with a parallel reduction in the demand in the
industrial countries," Mr. Arlacchi said. Narcotics experts say they do not
see matching efforts in rich countries to cut use.

"The prices of heroin and cocaine have been declining over 10 years," Mr.
Arlacchi said. "That trend will now be interrupted. Prices will increase
without demand reduction, and there will be more powerful incentives to
cultivators and traders."

Mr. Starr, of Johns Hopkins, said special attention should be paid to
Kyrgyzstan, parts of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, as well as Xinjiang, in
western China. "Kyrgyzstan was the largest legal producer of opium poppies
in the world during Soviet times," he said. Opium was used to make morphine
for medicinal use. "Presumably the people who made it work then are still
on the ground -- and unemployed."