A BETTER WAY TO DEAL WITH AFGHANISTAN'S POPPY CROP

As Heroin Trade Grows, A Nixon-Era Plan In Turkey
Provides A Model.

Afghanistan provides more than 90% of the world's heroin, which is
made from poppies. The amount has skyrocketed since the Taliban regime
that sheltered Osama bin Laden was toppled in 2001.

The poppy boom feeds heroin addicts in Europe and in the USA. It also
provides income for the resurgent Taliban, which is battling American
and NATO forces and which has decided that its religious strictures
against drugs don't preclude it from cashing in on the heroin trade.

So what to do?

The United States is pushing Afghanistan to spray poppy fields with a
crop-killing herbicide, much as is done with coca in Colombia, and
develop new sources of income for the poppy farmers.

This approach might sound reasonable, but it threatens to make a
deteriorating situation even worse. Here's why. The American and NATO
forces in Afghanistan rely on intelligence and support from Afghans.
Yet the Afghans' resentment is rising as civilians increasingly get
killed and hurt in operations against Taliban forces. Just the threat
of spraying poppy fields is increasing that anger, because spraying
could destroy the livelihoods of as many as 3 million farmers and
drive them into the arms of the Taliban.

There might be a better way to bridge the clashing agendas of the wars
on terror and drugs.

The Senlis Council, a group based in Europe and Afghanistan, proposes
legalizing and managing the poppy crops, turning them into medicines
such as morphine. It wants to adapt a program that largely eliminated
heroin production in Turkey in the 1970s with the support of President
Nixon and Congress.

Like the Bush administration in Afghanistan, Nixon at first insisted
on spraying the poppy fields. But Turkish leaders refused because of a
revolt from their farmers. The compromise included guaranteed markets
for the morphine. Within a few years, Turkey was no longer the premier
source for heroin.

The Senlis Council is proposing pilot projects under which the
morphine factories would be set up in Afghan villages and monitored by
village elders and outside groups. The factories could provide
employment and income for the villages -- and plow some profits into
alternative industries.

It's true, as critics point out, that legal opium fetches about
one-third the price of opium sold on the illegal market, and the
Senlis proposal envisions Afghan opium being sold relatively cheaply
for medications in developing countries.

But the United States and the international community are already
spending billions of dollars on development in Afghanistan. Some of
that money could be used to help bridge the gap and wean the poppy
farmers away from risky, illegal production.

Defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan will require pragmatism,
creativity and the support of the Afghan people. Giving "poppies for
peace" a chance might just pay dividends in the U.S. war on terror.