BUYING AFGHAN POPPIES NO SOLUTION

Re: Let's Buy Afghanistan's Poppies, editorial, June 4.

Before we rush to buy up the Afghanistan opium poppy crop, some
fact-checking might be in order. The International Narcotics Control
Board (INCB) of the United Nations predicts that world demand in 2007
for medical opiates will be about 420 tonnes of morphine equivalent.
The INCB predicts legal production to be 362 tonnes, leaving a
deficit of about 58 tonnes. However, the inventory controlled by the
INCB amounts to 689 tonnes: 12 times the estimated 2007 shortfall.

These numbers led Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, to state in the executive
summary of the Afghanistan Opium Survey 2006 that "there is no
shortage of medical morphine in the world."

The annual Afghanistan illegal production of 6,100 tonnes of opium
contains about 600 tonnes of morphine equivalent. This is 143%
greater than current world total legal production controlled by the INCB.

Ironically, even if the demand for medical morphine were there, the
"Let's Buy Afghanistan's Poppies" proposal is more likely to boost
poppy production, as Afghan farmers move to supply their new
customers, as well as continue to supply their existing drug-lord
customers in the $3.1-billion heroin trade. All this is to say, there
is no quick and easy solution to the serious poppy cultivation
problem in Afghanistan.

Colonel (ret'd) Brian MacDonald, senior defence analyst

Conference of Defence Associations

Toronto.