OPIUM POPPIES ARE NOT THE PROBLEM

Re: Don't Encourage Poppy Production In Afghanistan, letter to the
editor, Jan. 8.

Bert Tatham's letter reminds me of Joni Mitchell's song Dreamland.
The result of almost 40 years of coca-eradication programs in South
America is that cocaine is more plentiful there than it has ever
been. The vain attempt to destroy what nature has provided has
resulted in profoundly negative effects in coca-producing countries
and abroad: massive violence on all sides triggered by cocaine
prohibition, and massive damage to the environment and the health of
entire communities caused by the poisons used in this attempted eradication.

We can, most likely, be confident that President Hamid Karzai's
assessment is no more reliable than the various assessments of the
U.S. president who engineered his installation. The reality is that
endless occupation by foreign countries -- not the poppy --
"represents the single greatest challenge to the long-term security,
development and effective governance of Afghanistan." The continuing
prohibition of poppy production seems to offer the primary source of
power and financial resources for the numerous warlords whose
existence is, ironically, one of the excuses used to justify this
endless interference.

George Kosinski, Gibsons, B.C.