THE TALEBAN'S DRUG DIVIDEND

Each spring, huge areas of the south and east of Afghanistan, are covered
with red opium poppies.

Weeks later, after the flowers have seeded, farmers make holes in the seed
heads and scrape off the white milky liquid.

This is raw opium.

Some of it is processed into heroin and morphine base in small factories
inside Afghanistan.

Sanctions

Some leaves the country unprocessed, destined for factories in Pakistan and
Central Asia. From there, it gets smuggled to Europe.

Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium.

Last year, the United Nations Security Council introduced limited sanctions
against the Taleban.

The Taleban's support for the Saudi militant, Osama Bin Laden was their main
cause of concern. However, the resolution also said the Security Council was
deeply disturbed by what it called the "significant rise in the illicit
production of opium in Afghanistan".

In poverty-stricken Afghanistan, poppy is the most lucrative crop farmers
can grow.

It's ideally suited to the dry conditions here, needing less water than
wheat.

It gives particularly good yields - higher than in Burma, the world's other
big producer.

Drug taxes

Farmers this year have been selling raw opium for about $50 a kilogramme.

By the time it gets to London as heroin, the price is likely to be more than
2,000 times higher.

The mark-up is huge, but the income which Afghan opium growers get is high
by local standards.

The farmers pay taxes - providing the Taleban with one of their most
important sources of revenue.

Opium is also one of Afghanistan's few sources of foreign currency.

The crop is so important that when the national currency collapsed in April,
many people blamed it on a drought which had affected poppy production.

At the same time as presiding over record levels of drug production, the
Taleban have introduced some of the toughest laws against drug consumption
in the world.

High production, low consumption

Even cigarette smoking is discouraged.

People who use drugs like heroin, alcohol and hashish are sentenced to
prison.

The Taleban have been accused of hypocrisy for their "high production, low
consumption" narcotics policy, but they say the problem is with western
demand.

"It's the responsibility of the West to prevent illegal consumption of drugs
in their own societies," says Dr Najibullah Shams, head of the Taleban's
High Commission for the Struggle Against Drugs.

"They can use opium as a medicine, or as a narcotic. It's their choice."

This year, the Taleban announced they were cutting poppy production by one
third and invited journalists to come and watch crops being cut and burned.

They say they would like to eliminate production, but as a poor country
subject to sanctions, they say they need international support to carry out
crop substitution schemes.

Islamic traditions

Though there are some areas which have a long tradition of opium
consumption - such as Badakhshan in the north-east - overall, there is
little evidence of widespread drug abuse.

However, preliminary results of a United Nations survey suggest it is a
growing problem.

The UN points to Pakistan, where increased production of opium and heroin
brought addicts in its wake.

The Taleban are not worried. Dr Shams says that Afghans' moral and Islamic
traditions will protect them.

On the other hand, the traumas of 20 years of war may make some people
vulnerable.

One young man drying out in the only drug rehabilitation unit in Kabul said
he became addicted after his brother was killed in a rocket attack.

Pain relief

"I just couldn't bear the grief," he says.

"I just wanted to forget. So I started taking heroin."

He was being supported by his family after he made the decision to give up
the drug.

"It's not surprising that people take drugs," says Dr Tamasha, who makes
heroic efforts at the rehabilitation unit - on a salary of $4 a month.

He says about a third of his patients have problems with heroin, the rest
with medical drugs, including tranquillisers, sleeping tablets and
anti-depressants.

"Some people have lost their jobs and can't see how to make a living. Or
they take them to ease the physical pain of hard labour," he says.

"And many, many people have lost family in the war or they've become
refugees or seen their city destroyed. We have suffered from a hundred
calamities."