LET'S BE HEROES IN OPIUM TRADE

Our troops will die in Afghanistan with our public never
understanding that many of the deaths could easily be prevented if we
would change our policy on heroin. In the process we would strike a
cost-free blow to the terrorists.

Repeated stories describe the huge role of opium poppies, by far the
most important crop to millions of starving farmers, in economically
ravaged Aghanistan. ( Please see "Thriving drug operation fuels
Taliban resurgence/Bloodshed rises in an insurgency largely funded by
Afghan opium," Page A3, Saturday.) The illegal profits help fund
independent war lords, al-Quaida and the Taliban. They fuel the
growing insurgency and threaten the glimmer of democracy there. Our
allies are already pulling their troops out of danger, and we will
have to put more of ours in.

We apparently would rather kill our troops and fund terrorists than
let a few registered heroin addicts get their drugs from a licensed
clinic instead of from drug dealers. The system has begun in Europe
and has worked well in our own history. Based on that record, the
system would also reduce use, slash crime and keep heroin out of our schools.

The opium poppies can be bought dirt cheap by the Afghan central
government. (We would guarantee [and] to purchase the crop from
them.) This would make them and us heroes to the Afghan people,
undercut the terrorist insurgency and save our troops.

But prepare for the bodies; no politician has had the guts to even
publicly mention the alternative.

Jerry Epstein

Drug Policy Forum of Texas (DPFT)