OPIUM CONTINUES TO SPROUT FROM NUMBER OF AFGHAN FIELDS

Many Say Country's Future Hinges In Large Part On Uprooting Trade

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN - Although temperatures sometimes drop below
freezing, farmers have already planted this year's opium poppy crop in
fields just outside Kandahar.

It's no secret to the government of interim President Hamid Karzai or
the U.S. troops who patrol the area. Opium poppy is virtually the only
winter crop.

Akhtar, a major opium growing farmer who asked that his full name not
be used, says his and other nearby villages producing drugs rarely
encounter any U.S. anti-drug personnel.

The farmers are quite open about their business, even offering
visitors bowls of salt-roasted marijuana seeds, a byproduct of another
major commodity in the village: hashish.

Akhtar and other villagers say producing drugs is a matter of
capitalist economics. They can earn three times as much growing poppy
and marijuana as raising wheat, their traditional crop.

"Because these two crops don't require a lot of water," said Akhtar,
"we make a better profit when we sell it."

U.N. surveys estimate Afghanistan accounted for three quarters of the
world's opium last year, and the trade brought in $2.3 billion, more
than half of the nation's gross domestic product. New surveys suggest
even more will be planted this year.

Patrick Fruchet, a Kabul-based U.N. official, said drugs finance local
warlords and their private militias, which in turn, keep the country
politically destabilized.

"How we deal with poppy will make or break Afghanistan in the medium
term," Mr. Fruchet said.

Threat times three

Mr. Karzai made the same point this month when he told an
international anti-drug conference that opium production threatened
economic recovery, security and even Islam in Afghanistan.

"Poppy cultivation destroys all three," he told Afghan leaders,
foreign diplomats, military officers and counter-narcotics experts.
"We need more help and assistance."

Mirwais Yasini, head of Afghanistan's Counter Narcotics Directorate in
Kabul, said his government is making some progress in the fight
against drugs. The government is educating farmers, cracking down on
heroin labs and "eradicating the opium plants," Mr. Yasini said.
Additionally, the U.S. Army has begun a new policy of destroying
heroin labs and poppy fields when they encounter them during normal
operations.

Opium poppies have grown in Afghanistan for centuries, but it wasn't
until the 1980s that significant amounts were processed into heroin.
After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the mujahadeen
guerrillas discovered that heroin smuggling was a lucrative means to
finance their anti-Soviet campaign.

Weapons for the mujahadeen arrived in Karachi, Pakistan, traveled by
truck to the Afghan border and then by mule over the mountain passes.
The heroin followed the same trail in reverse.

Within a few years after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, factional
fighting among the mujahadeen led to chaos. Heroin quickly became the
country's number one export as warlords financed their armies with
drug smuggling. By the time the Taliban seized power in 1996,
Afghanistan produced roughly 75 percent of the world's heroin.

Poppy pressure

Under tremendous pressure from the U.S., however, the Taliban reversed
course and banned poppy growing in 1999. Within two years, poppy
cultivation dropped by more than 90 percent, according to U.N. aerial
surveys. It continued only in areas controlled by the Northern
Alliance, the U.S.-backed guerrillas that later helped topple the Taliban.

Within months after the U.S. invasion in 2001, when Afghanistan had no
effective government, farmers planted poppy, and heroin smuggling
surged once again. U.N. surveys estimate Afghan opium production rose
to 3,968 tons last year.

Afghan officials are vowing to destroy huge amounts of crops and
arrest big smugglers in coming months. The United Nations and donors
are also trying to build a crack Afghan counter-narcotics police.

But there are doubts about the ability of the Afghan government to
take on powerful warlords who control much of the country and are
widely believed to fund their private armies with drug money. Some
warlords also hold public office.

Mr. Yasini, the drug czar, said the government has tried to crack down
on the drug trade but has limited resources. For example, only 430 of
the proposed 17,000 Afghan national police will be assigned to
anti-drug efforts because the government's priority is fighting the
Taliban and maintaining security.

Back in the village outside Kandahar, farmers are tending their
fields. They understand the social problems caused by drug addiction.
"But what option do we have?" asked poppy farmer Akhtar.

Reese Erlich is a freelance writer based in San Francisco. The
Associated Press contributed to this report.