WHY NARCO STATUS BAD FOR AFGHANS

The Washington Post said in an editorial on Saturday:

PRESIDENT Bush visited Colombia last week to celebrate that nation's
progress in the war on drugs. With the help of U.S. money and military
equipment, the Colombians have attacked traffickers, extradited dozens
of their leaders and fumigated thousands of acres of coca crops; the
result is that coca cultivation has fallen by around two-fifths over
the past three years. The Bush administration now hopes to repeat this
success in Afghanistan. Last week it asked Congress to fund a
$780-million offensive against Afghanistan's opium trade.

The Afghan challenge is tougher by some measures than the Colombian
one. In the Colombian case, drug revenue amounts to about 3.5 per cent
of legal economic output; in Afghanistan the share is more than 50 per
cent. The opium trade has boomed since the fall of the Taliban regime
three years ago, generating payments to farmers of $2.2 billion in
2002-03, 15 times more than in the two years leading up to the
Taliban's departure. A determined counternarcotics offensive,
particularly one that focuses on crop eradication, risks generating a
backlash against the fragile democratic government.

It's a risk that must be taken, however. Drugs are a poisonous basis
for development: The profits that flow to ordinary farmers are
outweighed by those that enrich traffickers who buy off government
officials, retain private armies and undermine the legitimate
authority of the state. The more time goes by, the more traffickers
are likely to entrench themselves, investing in extra processing
factories and so capturing a larger share of the profits. There are
signs that this is happening already: In 2002 traffickers captured
half of opium revenue, with the other half going to farmers. In 2004
the traffickers' share is around four-fifths.

The United States must press ahead with its counternarcotics strategy
before the traffickers' position grows even stronger. That means first
and foremost targeting the traffickers and their protectors, who
include prominent government figures as well as warlords with whom the
United States has worked in tracking down Taliban and al-Qaida
remnants. The hunt for terrorists must continue, but not at the
expense of consolidating Afghanistan's emerging status as a
narco-state.