THE BITTER HARVEST OF AN ILLOGICAL POLICY

For those of you who like brainteasers, here is a conundrum. Last
Tuesday in the Lords, the freshly ennobled Lord Malloch Brown,
Minister of State at the FCO with responsibility for Africa, Asia and
the United Nations, was coming clean about the failure to eradicate
opium production in Afghanistan. He said: "It is a terrible black
mark on the international community's performance in Afghanistan ...
that so far we have not prevailed in the efforts to defeat the growth
of this pernicious crop."

It wasn't all bad news; in areas where the "writ of the Afghan
Government runs" the size of the crop was coming down - assisted by
crop substitution and development support. Unfortunately, in the much
larger areas, where the writ of the Afghan government doesn't run,
the crop has increased significantly. And the puzzle I would set you
is this: how would you explain to an Afghan farmer who has just seen
his livelihood destroyed that in several rural provinces of England -
all areas where the writ of the British Government still runs - the
cultivation of opium poppies has recently increased markedly, with
the explicit approval of the authorities?

It's true that the farmers of Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire who
have recently turned fields over to the cultivation of opium poppies
aren't selling their crop to drug dealers, or at least not to
outlawed ones. They're growing the poppies for the pharmaceutical
company Macfarlan Smith, which makes medical opiates and is eager for
new sources of raw material because of a worldwide shortage of
morphine and similar drugs.

So, if you've solved the first half of the puzzle, here comes the
second. How do you explain to the Afghan farmer that he can't have a
licence to fill that commodity gap, while his infinitely more
prosperous western counterpart can? Is it because his way of life is
inherently criminal, as the eradication programme seems to imply, or
because other interests are served by the arbitrary destruction of
his poppy fields?

There are certainly those who would be dismayed if the failing Afghan
eradication programme was abandoned. The corrupt elements of the
Karzai government and regional administrations, who make a healthy
living out of turning a blind eye, would probably regret a move to
legalised trade. DynCorp, the US military contractor which supplies
enforcing muscle for eradication sweeps, probably wouldn't either.

Above all, the Taliban would be utterly dismayed. For them, the
policy of poppy-field destruction is a heady double hit. They can
extort heavy "taxes" on farmers and then reap the propaganda benefits
of destructive raids on poppy farms. Indeed, were you to ask a
Taliban strategist to come up with a policy best suited to sustain an
insurgency, it's doubtful that they could do any better.

As the Senlis Council, a development think-tank, has reported, the US
has successfully pursued a legalisation policy before, when it became
clear that the Nixon administration's attempts to stamp out Turkish
opium farming was politically and socially impossible. Instead, they
tried licensing and a preferential trade agreement, which poved
highly effective. Perhaps Gordon Brown could suggest that George Bush
might emulate the Taliban and Richard Nixon, and put practical
results ahead of ideological purity. It's not the plant that's
pernicious, it's the policy.