DEADLY HARVEST BENEFITS OPPOSITES

Anti-drug Taliban and farmers reap money from trade none say they
want.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan AD As clouds of acrid smoke billowed into the air
and an Islamic cleric chanted verses from the Koran, nearly 10,000
pounds of confiscated hashish and 800 pounds of heroin went up in
flames surrounded by banners that read, "Down With All Kinds of Drugs."

The torching ceremony last week, attended by Afghan and United Nations
officials, was aimed at convincing a skeptical world and a reluctant
nation that authorities here are serious about fighting drugs, even
though opium poppy production has soared to record levels since the
conservative Islamic Taliban regime took power in 1996. The country is
now the world's leading supplier of poppy and its addictive
derivatives.

"This is not just symbolic. It is something we take very seriously,"
said Abdul Hameed Akhunzada, who heads the Taliban's anti-drug
commission. "We are 100 percent determined to control drugs, but we
cannot do it alone. This problem existed long before the Taliban, and
we need much more help from the outside world to solve it."

But two hours' drive east across the desert, in a mud-walled village
where acres of new green poppy plants were sprouting beside wheat
fields, calloused and illiterate farmers made it clear why reducing
poppy cultivation and opium production in Afghanistan faces stiff
resistance.

The men expressed gratitude for the irrigation wells and flood dikes
built by the U.N. Drug Control Program in their district, and
enthusiasm about the wheat seeds and apricot seedlings donated to
encourage them to switch crops. But they also said poppy requires less
water, grows faster, produces more profit and is easier to sell, since
buyers always appear at the village gates at harvest time.

"We don't like poppy, but we are poor, and we have to grow it to feed
our families," said Mullah Janan, 25, a farmer in the village of
Sekander, where poppy crops provide year-round work from planting,
weeding and lancing poppy bulbs to collect opium sap. "Wheat gives us
food, but poppy gives us money to buy tea and medicine and other
things we need. Without it, the people would not survive."

According to the most recent U.N. survey, Afghanistan produced an
unprecedented 4,600 metric tons of opium last year. The number of
acres under poppy cultivation rose 43 percent, and opium output
increased by at least 70 percent. The estimated value of the total raw
crop was $183 million, and 97 percent of the poppy fields were in
territory controlled by the Taliban, which is still fighting pockets
of armed resistance in the north.

Western law enforcement authorities have noted that the Taliban
collects a 10 percent tax on all farm products, including poppy, and
the authorities believe it also profits from the extensive drug
trafficking network in the region. With the country economically
devastated after 20 years of war and burdened by international
anti-terrorism sanctions, they say, Afghan authorities have little
incentive to curb this cash-rich crop.

But Taliban officials said this week that they recognize and condemn
the pernicious impact of drug use abroad, and they stressed that it is
strictly prohibited by Afghanistan's Islam-based law. They also
appeared eager to reduce their international isolation on such issues,
and they have cooperated closely with the U.N. Drug Control Program in
its efforts to motivate poppy farmers to grow alternative crops.

Five months ago, Taliban religious authorities called for all farmers
to reduce their poppy cultivation by one-third. The Kandahar governor
also has ordered a 50 percent reduction in this region, which produces
75 percent of Afghanistan's opium.

Last month, officials banned the collection of civil and religious
taxes on hashish, which is made from hemp, and heroin.

"When a person is intoxicated, he cannot worship God, so it is
completely forbidden under Islamic law," Gov. Mohammad Ahsan Rahmani
said during the burning ceremony. "Poppy growing has continued because
of our weak economy, but it is the policy of the Islamic State of
Afghanistan to ultimately eradicate its cultivation and use."

Accusations that the Taliban profits from drug taxes, Rahmani said,
are "lies and foolish propaganda of the enemy." Like other Taliban
officials, he drew a sharp distinction between poppy, which is legal
to grow in Afghanistan, and its addictive derivatives, which are
banned. The traditional tax on poppy, he said, is a "historic
phenomenon. The money does not go to the Taliban, it goes to the
mosques to help poor relatives and neighbors."