WAR ON DRUGS 'HAS FAILED'

KABUL: The war against drugs in Afghanistan is a failure and the
strategy needs to be changed, the top UN official in the world's
biggest heroin-producing country said yesterday.

"Nobody can say that we have been successful if the poppy production
has increased," Tom Koenigs, the UN Secretary-General's special
representative in Afghanistan, told a monthly press conference.

"Certainly the strategy and the effort have to be rethought," said
Koenigs, adding: "The problem has increased and the remedy has to adjust."

Figures for Afghanistan's 2006 harvest of opium poppies - which are
used to make heroin - are not yet known but the UN has said that it is
set to pass the 4,100 tonnes produced in 2005.

Last year's haul was worth $2.7bn, forming a sizeable part of the
destitute and insurgency-racked country's economy.

Afghanistan is the world's top producer of opium and supplies 90% of
the heroin sold in Europe, despite moves by world powers including the
US and Britain to combat the trade.

Afghan officials have linked the drugs trade to a soaring insurgency
headed by the Taliban, the fundamentalist regime which ironically
slashed opium output before its ousting in late 2001 by a US-led
coalition.