CANADA URGED TO PROCESS AFGHAN POPPIES INTO MEDICINE FOR THIRD
WORLD

OTTAWA - Canada should spearhead an international effort to license
opium production in Afghanistan for peaceful pharmaceutical uses to
combat the country's chronic economic dependence on the illegal
narcotic, deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said Thursday.

Ignatieff endorsed the proposal of the controversial London-based
think-tank, the Senlis Council, which has called for a pilot project
to study the licensing of the Afghan opium crop -- the backbone of the
world's illicit heroin trade and the cornerstone of Afghanistan's
impoverished economy.

The council, which issued a series of scathing reports on the world's
failures in the wartorn country, has argued processing facilities
should be set up in Afghanistan to convert the opium from poppies into
codeine and morphine to meet a shortage of pain medicines in the
developing world.

Essentially legalizing Afghanistan's No. 1 criminal activity would
revitalize the country's economy, the council says.

Ignatieff said he has spoken to Senlis representatives about the
proposal, which they unveiled last summer, and he is convinced of its
merits.

"I've stress-tested their proposal. I don't buy anything until I knock
it around. But I believe these guys. The Senlis Council has
demonstrated there is a market for such medicine," Ignatieff said in a
keynote speech at the annual gathering of the Conference of Defence
Associations Institute.

He made the pitch to a military audience of hundreds attending
Canada's largest security and military symposium.

Ignatieff's address was a partisan attack on what he said are the
Harper government's failings in Afghanistan.

"Canada can lead by providing political leadership ... on a new
strategy to provide technical assistance and infrastructure funding to
help make the Senlis pilot project succeed. Because of all we've
sacrificed, we have the right to speak."

Ignatieff said the Liberals are immensely proud of Canada's military
contribution to the mission in Kandahar, which they initiated almost
two years ago, but accused the Conservative government of botching the
mission by shortchanging development.

Ignatieff also agreed with the Senlis Council's contention that a
poppy eradication program is bound to fail and will turn the country's
peasant farmers against the foreign soldiers.

Poppy eradication teams came under attack in the southern Afghan
province of Helmand again this week.

The Afghan government and the United Nations drug agency have
dismissed the Senlis proposal as unworkable.

Gen. Rick Hillier, the chief of the defence staff, also criticized the
Senlis Council as lacking credibility.