TRYING TO GET AFGHANISTAN OFF ITS OPIUM DEPENDENCE

In 2005, Afghan President Hamid Karzai declared war on his country's
poppy industry, which fuels a vicious international opium trade and
swells the war chest of Taliban forces fighting to regain power.

Two years later, Afghan police are plowing up the poppy fields in
southern Helmand province, supported by British NATO troops.

But as Afghanistan's drug trade continues to generate half the
country's income, some observers say a change in tactics is needed in
the bid to crush the trade that is endangering both Afghans and NATO forces.

One radical approach -- which has worked in Turkey -- is to legalize
the crop and create a locally based industry for producing
painkillers. Although opposed by most Western governments, including
Canada's, the idea was recently backed by the British Medical
Association as a way to tackle a shortfall of pain medication.

In Canada, which is a leading importer of opium-derived codeine,
Alberta researchers have suggested growing opium poppies in their
province for commercial purposes.

The Paris-based Senlis Council is against that idea, saying
Afghanistan already has an abundant poppy supply and lacks only the
green light to turn it into a lucrative legal industry that would
improve the lives, and security, of Afghans.

"The current counter-narcotics policies are risking the international
community's entire stabilization mission in Afghanistan," argues
Senlis' executive director Emmanuel Reinert.

"Until the poppy-growing issue is addressed, there will be no real
security or development."

The group wants to begin a pilot project for legal analgesic
production in September.

Eradication programs, Reinert says, anger local growers whose
livelihoods depend on poppies and who often feel betrayed by
unfulfilled promises of viable crop replacement.

As a result, impoverished rural people could decide to join the
Taliban insurgents who are profiting from their crops.

"There's a symbiotic relationship between the drug barons and the
Taliban," British counter-narcotics official Mark Norton told Radio
Free Europe.

"They don't necessarily grow opium, but they provide a protection
service for those that do.