END THE OPIUM TRADE IN AFGHANISTAN

Afghan farmers need a lucrative replacement for poppy cultivation. If the
Taliban had one positive effect during its half-decade reign of terror, it
was to decimate opium poppy cultivation.

And if the rest of the world wants to prevent poppy cultivation, it had
better rush to help Afghan farmers find a better way to make a living.

Afghanistan, the world's largest grower of opium poppies, produced more
than a million pounds of raw opium in 1999, before the Taliban clamped down
and cut that amount by 96 percent.

Now that the Taliban appears to be gone, Afghan farmers once again are
planting their fields in poppies.

For them it is sheer survival.One farmer said a 2.5-acre plot of land sown
in poppies gave him a $13,000 profit to feed the 15 people in his extended
family.Planting the same amount of land in vegetables, corn or wheat would
have given the farmer a $100 profit.

One poppy farmer was quoted in The New York Times: "Help us establish
industries in Afghanistan.We are tough people, hard workers, and we would
happily quit the cultivation of poppy.But here there are no industries, no
factories, nothing, and we need to take the money from the one remaining
source."

The Taliban imprisoned farmers who refused to quit growing poppies.But by
helping farmers find an equally lucrative way to support their families,
the U.S. could do as much to halt opium production as the Taliban did.