HEROIN PRODUCTION STILL RAGING: UN

Southern Province Set To Become 'World's Biggest Drug Supplier'

UNITED NATIONS - The world's drug supply problem is "being
contained," with one glaring exception -- heroin production in
southern Afghanistan, a global study by the United Nations says.

World Drug Report 2007, to be released today in Vienna by the UN's
Office of Drugs and Crime, warns that the supply of heroin-producing
opiates from the region where Canada's biggest overseas force is
deployed is rising so rapidly that it threatens to drive up heroin
consumption around the globe.

"Helmand province is on the verge of becoming the world's biggest
drug supplier, with the dubious distinction of cultivating more drugs
than entire countries such as Myanmar, Morocco or even Colombia,"
Antonio Maria Costa, chief of the UN anti-drugs office, writes in the
report. He was referring to a territory in southern Afghan-istan
where Canadian troops have operated against Taliban insurgents from
their bases in neighbouring Kandahar province.

"Curing Helmand of its drug and insurgency cancer will rid the world
of the most dangerous source of its most dangerous narcotic, and go a
long way to bringing security to the region."

According to the 275-page UN report, "Global markets for the main
illicit drugs -- the opiates, cocaine, cannabis and amphetamine-type
stimulants -- remained largely stable," during the 2005-2006 period
studied. "Of course .. there remains considerable variation. Most
notably, heroin production continued to expand in the conflict-ridden
provinces of southern Afghanistan."

About 2,500 Canadian troops operate from the southern province of
Kandahar, while Britain, the Netherlands and the United States have
significant forces in other southern areas. Despite the strong
foreign presence, the region accounts for 62 per cent of
Afghanistan's opium poppy cultivation, which in turn was the largest
poppy crop in the country's history. The crop became the source of 92
per cent of the world's heroin.

Opium poppy production in what was once infamously known as the
Golden Triangle -- Burma, Laos Vietnam and Thailand -- has fallen by
about 80 per cent since 2000. But Afghanistan's 59-per-cent increase
drove up the worldwide average increase by 33 per cent. Total
worldwide cultivation covered 201,000 hectares.

Coincidentally, a separate report from the Senlis Council, a
think-tank that is based in Canada and Europe and has monitoring
staff in southern Afghanistan, released a 57-page paper yesterday
that calls for sweeping changes in western anti-narcotics and
development efforts throughout the war-torn country.

The paper, entitled Taliban Politics and Afghan Legitimate
Grievances, calls on Gordon Brown, who takes over as British prime
minister this week, to distance himself from "failed Bush-Blair
politics in Afghanistan." Senlis Council president Norine MacDonald
says Prime Minister Stephen Harper should also take note.

Among policies the group opposes is poppy eradication. Instead,
cultivation should be licensed so that farmers can sell their crop
for the production of legitimate medicines.

"Millions of dollars have been spent in eradication, but cultivation
is up 60 per cent," Ms. MacDonald noted. "But eradication is also
turning the locals against the Canadian military and other forces."

Ms. MacDonald, who lives in Kandahar, said the United States is
pushing to have Afghan poppy eradication teams switch from manual to
chemical crop destruction. This will have the added negative impact
of poisoning the land.

But Thomas Pietschmann, a co-author of the UN report, said that while
chemical eradication policies may be unnecessarily destructive,
guiding farmers to the legitimate medicinal market will likely not work.

"Licensing sounds fantastic, but farmers get five to 10 times more by
selling to the illegal market, so why would they change?" he asked.