Note: First of two parts; Tomorrow: Embattled force tries to keep heroin
at bay

AFGHANISTAN CLAMPS DOWN ON POPPY GROWTH FOR HEROIN

PASHMOL, Afghanistan - Through acre after acre of farmland in southern
Afghanistan, there is not a poppy field in view. It is perhaps the most
startling sight anywhere in the global drug trafficking arena.

Here, the world's most productive region for the manufacture of heroin,
farmers say they have switched from growing opium poppies to wheat or
sunflowers, or have let their fields lie fallow, at least for the growing
season that started five weeks ago. United Nations drug control officials
confirm the sudden drop in poppy plantings, although US analysts remain
skeptical.

The farmers' decision not to plant opium poppies stems directly from a
simple decree four months ago by the supreme leader of Afghanistan's ruling
Taliban movement, Mullah Mohammad Omar, who declared in a radio broadcast
that growing opium poppies was against sharia, or Islamic law.

''We all used to plant poppy once upon a time,'' said a grinning Habib
Ullah, 45, sitting in a field he recently seeded with wheat. ''We planted
it on all this land around you for the last five, six years. But they have
banned that. We adhere to the edict of Mullah Omar. If he hadn't said
anything, we would have planted poppy again, believe me.''

If the clampdown on heroin production proves effective, it will eventually
have major ramifications in the global drug trade, including tightening
supply, raising prices, and possibly opening new routes that would divert
more Colombian heroin from the United States to Europe. Afghanistan alone
produces an estimated 72 percent of the world's heroin.

US analysts believe it could be simply a one-season dropoff because of a
worldwide glut of opium. They also suggested that it could be motivated by
the Taliban's fear of a growing number of heroin addicts inside
Afghanistan, not from international pressure to crack down on cultivation.

''I think there is something different about this ban,'' said a State
Department official knowledgable about Afghanistan who spoke on condition
of anonymity. ''But the Taliban's sincerity on eradicating opium poppy is
in deep doubt - simply because they have had bans in the past and the poppy
crop has been able to expand.''

During the six years of the Taliban's expanding control of Afghanistan, the
poppy harvest has tripled, according to US estimates.

The effect from this growing season would probably take months to be felt
in the United States and Europe, although one early indication was that the
price of opium doubled in November in Pakistan, Afghanistan's neighbor,
after reports circulated that many Afghan farmers were not growing the crop
this season.

In areas of northern Afghanistan controlled by anti-Taliban forces,
however, the trade still flourishes. Traffickers are overwhelming border
guards in Tajikistan, carrying heroin and opium gum manufactured inside
Afghanistan from last season's crop.

Afghanistan supplies 80 percent of Europe's heroin and 5 to 15 percent of
the US supply. In recent months, US customs officials have made seizures of
Afghan heroin in airports in Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago.

Unless there are significant stashes of opium in southwestern Asia - opium
can be stored for years - a sudden reduction in Afghanistan would almost
surely affect the cost of heroin sold on US streets, reversing the steady
fall in price. In 1998, according to the US Office of National Drug Control
Policy, the price of a pure gram of heroin was $317, one-third the price a
decade earlier.

After Mullah Omar's edict on July 27, few outsiders said they believe the
Taliban would shut down its most lucrative cash crop; the Taliban
reportedly collected a 10 percent tax on the harvest as it was transported
to heroin and opium labs. But five weeks after the beginning of the growing
season, there are no signs of poppy shoots along main roads and canals
where they blossomed in years past, said senior UN drug-control officials.

''In the provinces which we have observed in the past two months, there are
no traces of opium plantations,'' said Sandro Tucci, spokesman for the UN
Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, yesterday from Vienna.
''We're not saying they haven't planted anything, but that we have no
reports of poppies growing. We will have to wait until the harvest in May.''

A senior-level UN delegation returned yesterday to Vienna from a trip in
Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, the second-largest poppy-growing area in
the country.

But current and former US analysts on Afghanistan's drug trade remain
skeptical.

''There have been attempts in the past by the Taliban to at least make a
show of attempting to control the drug trade, but it hasn't worked,'' said
John D. Moore, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst now studying at
the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Julie R. Sirrs, another former DIA official who now consults on Central and
South Asian affairs, said Mullah Omar's decree was ''curious'' because the
Taliban announced it unilaterally without using it as leverage to obtain
its number one goal: recognition as the representative of Afghanistan in
the United Nations.

But Sirrs and others doubted whether a drug crackdown alone would trigger
UN recognition.

''Of the three main issues - the other two being the harboring of Osama bin
Laden and the poor human rights record, especially with issues concerning
women - I get the sense that internationally the drug issue comes in
third,'' Sirrs said yesterday.

Sayed Bariadad Yaseen, the Taliban's health minister for five southern
districts, which includes the Helmand district that produces 39 percent of
the world's heroin, said there were multiple reasons for the ban.

''Mullah Omar decided to stop it in order to prevent further damage to the
country's image and because of the hazards that the poppies were creating
among young people in Europe and America,'' Yaseen said. ''Now we prefer to
find another alternative crop for the people. We are hoping for some
outside help on this.''

But that is unlikely in the short term. The UN is stopping a $10 million
pilot drug control program in Nangarhar this year because of lack of
funding. This week it launched a new appeal for funds for alternative crops
in Afghanistan.

For farmers here, the need is immediate. The worst drought in two
generations has crippled efforts to grow any crop, an exception being
poppies, which require less water.

Huddled in an old poppy field now seeded with wheat, several farmers in
this southern Afghan village said they had abandoned poppy only because of
the potential severe penalties. They questioned why the Taliban would bend
to the will of the West.

''The world never gave a damn about Afghanistan, so why should we give a
damn about the world? I used to plant poppy in land just over there,'' said
Abbas Samad, 35, pointing to a field 100 yards to the west. ''We only
planted it because we made lots of money. Now what are we going to do?''

Habib Ullah said his poppy harvest last year netted him $2,000. This year,
he believes he will be lucky to earn $500 from wheat. ''Everybody's obeying
the ban,'' he said. ''But no one hopes it lasts.''