THE PARADOX OF POPPY

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - 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 this 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 U.N.'s most recent survey, Afghanistan produced an
unprecedented 4,600 metric tons of opium last year. The number of acres
under poppy cultivation rose by 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."

For more than a year, U.N. trucks have been bringing loads of seed and
fertilizer, agricultural expertise and equipment to build flood dikes and
irrigation wells that farmers need to grow legally marketable and more
delicate crops.

U.N. officials said farmers have been enthusiastic, but that they
constantly ask for more help than the $2 million pilot project can afford.
They said many growers have reduced their poppy acreage as promised, but a
recent decline in opium prices and a severe drought might also be
responsible. As for the Taliban, they said, economic pressure and a weak
government structure make it difficult for authorities to enforce drug
reduction.

"They make a lot of excuses, but we can't blame them totally," said one
U.N. official, who asked not to be named. "Their country has been destroyed
by war, there is no strong central government or expertise, and their
people need to eat. The farmers say, 'Give us another way to live,' and the
Taliban are not in a position to do it."

This week, the U.N. Drug Control Program opened the first health clinic in
the remote Ghorka district, one of five it has targeted for drug
eradication. At the inaugural ceremony in Sekander village, U.N. aides
reminded local elders that the aid came with a price tag: their commitment
to gradually replace all poppy fields with alternative crops such as wheat,
onions, almonds and apricots.

The elders, squatting on straw mats over tea and cakes in the tiny concrete
building, nodded soberly and pledged their cooperation. Later, they led
visitors on a tour of new stone walls built to control flooding, and they
pointed out fields of young green wheat and fruit saplings along the way.

"Poppy is not as beneficial to us as people think," said Abdul Wahid Khan,
head of the Sekander village council. "We welcome this help, and we hope it
will enable us to divert all of our poppy crops, but that will take a long
time, and we need sustained support. If the United Nations program leaves,
it will be difficult for us to continue cooperating."

Along the road, the visitors passed field after field of new poppy plants,
with white plastic banners posted to scare off birds. Farmers gathered
around the truck, complaining that they needed a paved road to take their
wheat to market, that last year's onions could not be sold, and that only
poppy brought them an immediate cash income.

Janan said he and his neighbors were aware of their "responsibility to the
world," and they already have reduced their poppy crops by one-half. "If we
gain as much from alternative crops, we will stop growing poppy
altogether," Janan said. But, he added, "if not, we cannot give it up."