HARPER SHOULD CONSIDER P4M POPPY PROJECT

The P4M project is a counter-insurgency, counter-narcotics initiative
in which licensed farmers cultivate poppy plantations for the
production of painkilling medicines, writes Margaret Evans

Canada's military personnel are pretty stretched in Afghanistan as
they help to reconstruct this war-shredded country. But to win this
war against insurgents and win the hearts of the Afghan people maybe
Ottawa needs to reconstruct its conventional, entrenched position on
the Afghan farmer's opium poppy crop.

There are 24 Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Afghanistan
with Canada's team in Kandahar. It is at the forefront of the
UN-sanctioned 37-nation International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)
stabilization and reconstruction mission.

The Canadian PRT team consists of Canadian Forces members, civilian
police led by the RCMP, representatives of the Department of Foreign
Affairs and CIDA. Their focus, in broad strokes, is security,
governance and development. But when you cut to the details it would
make a lot of sense for Prime Minister Harper to take a closer look at
a recommendation by The Senlis Council, a respected international
policy think tank, to launch a trial Poppy for Medicine project (P4M
project) that could beef up security, embrace governance and enhance
economic development.

"We are still spending over ten times more on security and military
projects than we are spending on humanitarian aid and development,"
stated Norine MacDonald, QC, Founder and Lead Field Researcher for The
Senlis Council who has been living and working in Kandahar for the
past two years. "We need a major management overhaul of our approach."

Currently, farmers grow opium poppies for the illegal international
drug trade. According to the U.N. they are responsible for 87 per cent
of the world's supply of opium made into heroin. The P4M project is a
counter-insurgency, counter-narcotics initiative in which licensed
farmers cultivate poppy plantations for the production of painkilling
medicines. The entire production process from harvesting the poppies,
extracting the morphine (ten kilos of raw poppies yield one kilo of
morphine medicines) and processing the finished pharmaceutical-grade
morphine tablets would be done locally by project participants in
collaboration with the Afghan government and international experts.

The government would purchase the finished product for international
marketing under its own label. Under the trial program, the farmers
would receive $140 U.S. per kilo (compared to the $92 U.S. per kilo
paid them by drug traders in 2006) and in addition they would be
assured stable employment, long-term security and potential for growth
in a legal economy. To prevent poppy harvests from being diverted to
illegal channels, high levels of control would have to be implemented
with policing and security.

There's a huge, worldwide, undersupplied market for morphine and
morphine-based products. According to The Senlis Council, just six
countries (U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, Germany and France) use 80
per cent of the world's supply. The developing countries that account
for 80 per cent of the world's population use just 5 per cent because
of lack of affordability. Afghan-produced morphine could be
economically marketed in regions such as Latin America and Asia.

This is brilliant strategy, all the more so compared to the dogmatic
stupidity of the United States' counter-narcotics strategy to
eradicate poppy growing with chemical spraying. So far this year,
forced crop eradication has left the poorest farmers with no means to
feed their families. And people wonder why there is growing hostility
against the international presence in southern Afghanistan.

"There should be no crop eradication, manual or chemical, until the
poverty-stricken farmers have other means to feed their families,"
stated Ms. MacDonald.

Currently, France, India, Turkey, and Australia grow opium poppies
under license. If the Afghan government sanctions the project, and it
should, the program could start this fall when poppy seeds are planted.

Good on the Senlis folks for thinking outside the box and suggesting
something different.