A SKIRMISH IN THE DRUG WAR

SOMETHING positive has come from the strict hold of the Islamic
fundamentalist Taliban on Afghanistan. United Nations drug control
officers report that production of opium, the key ingredient in
heroin, has been wiped out or seriously disrupted in the Asian nation.

What effect this will have on the international drug trade remains to
be seen, but the heroin market in Europe and North America stands to
be diminished this year.

The Taliban is known outside Asia mainly for the harsh strictures its
religious militia has imposed on Afghanis, including chopping off the
limbs of criminals and public execution of offenders by relatives of
the victim. But Afghanistan was among the world leaders in opium
production, and last year the Taliban banned the growing of poppies,
which are the source of opium, and declared their planting contrary
to Islamic law.

The result, according to U.N. officials who have just returned from
eyewitness inspections in Afghanistan's drug-producing provinces, is
that crops of wheat and onions are sprouting on all but a handful of
acres where waves of blood-red poppies formerly thrived.

The U.S. State Department is skeptical of these claims, and some
western diplomats in Asia have said the Taliban may be trying to
drive up the price of opium to its own economic benefit. After all,
Afghanistan produced, according to U.N. figures, 4,000 tons of opium
last year, more than all other countries of the world combined, and
the Taliban has a history of tolerating the illicit drug and taxing
it.

But if the Taliban change-of-heart has worked, and less heroin is
flowing out of Asia, it's good news everywhere, including northwest
Ohio.

"Heroin is alive and well in Toledo," Mark E. Murtha, the head of the
local Drug Enforcement Administration office, remarked last year as
Lucas County joined with four other urban areas across northern Ohio
to form a "high intensity" anti-drug task force. And the horrible
personal toll heroin addicts inflict on themselves and their families
is a continuing testament in weekly sessions of Lucas County Family
Drug Court.

More proof will be required before we're ready to give credit to a
band of religious zealots for a major victory in the worldwide war
against drugs, but for now it appears that at least a substantial
skirmish has been won.