WAR ON TERROR AND HEROIN

Afghan Mission Has More Than One Purpose

By staying tuned to the mainstream media, we assume that Canada's role
in Afghanistan is to help an international coalition take out the
Taliban and allow the fledgling Afghan democracy to flourish through
the rebuilding of infrastructure and institutions.

That's only partially correct.

The byproduct of this military operation is what it does to the
dynamic of the international heroin trade.

The Mounties have warned at least two federal agencies Afghan heroin
is "increasingly" making its way to Canada and poses a direct threat
to the public, despite millions of dollars from Ottawa to fund the
war-torn country's counter-narcotics efforts, newly-released documents
reveal.

The Afghan-produced heroin "directly threatens" Canadians, say the
identically worded briefings.

Until a few years ago, most heroin came from an opium-producing region
in Southeast Asia called the "golden triangle," a mountainous area
of around 350,000 square kilometres overlapping Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam
and Thailand.

In recent years, organized crime groups from Southeast Asia have taken
to trafficking synthetic drugs, such as ecstasy, which have more users
- - and more profitability - than heroin.

The Southeast Asian traffickers were notorious for brazen heroin
shipments, sometimes totalling up to 100 kilograms a haul. The new
traffickers typically prefer smaller, but more frequent, shipments.
The strategy, it seems, is akin to throwing as much as possible
against the wall to see what sticks.

Roughly 92 per cent of the world's heroin comes from opium poppies
grown in Afghanistan, according to the 2007 World Drug Report,
released in June by the United Nations Office on Drugs.

Afghan heroin typically flows into Canada through two main trafficking
arteries: Via the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and
then on to India and, finally, Canada; and, from Afghanistan to
western Africa, then through the United States into Canada.

At first glance, Canada doesn't seem to have a heroin problem. Less
than one per cent of Canadians have used the drug at some point in
their lives, according to the latest report from Health Canada and the
Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.

But it's difficult to gauge the real prevalence of heroin use in
Canada, since most users don't partake in national surveys, said a
Centre on Substance Abuse spokeswoman.

The RCMP says it seized 60 kilograms of heroin in Canada in 2003, 77
kilograms in 2004, and 83 kilograms in 2005.

It impossible to consider the Afghan conflict without recognizing the
role heroin producers have in it. They are neither pro-Taliban nor
pro-coalition, rather they are pro-drug-money and that's all.

It's the ultimate catch-22 - a deal with the devil, so to speak. If
coalition forces seek to eradicate the poppy crop then producers will
galvanize support with the Taliban. If troops turn a blind eye to the
heroin crop, they are accused of hypocrisy.

A no-win situation.