BUYING THE POPPY CROP COULD PUT PAID TO AFGHAN PROBLEM

'Under the Current Strategy, the Military Situation Has Grown Worse'

Is it possible that there is an economic key to the problem of
Afghanistan that will prove more effective than the military methods
applied so far?

As the rundown of UK strength in Iraq comes nearer, our commitment in
Afghanistan looks ever more open-ended, and the prospect there
increasingly alarming. Current policies to defeat the Taliban by
military means and cut the flow of heroin to Western countries by
destroying the poppy crops have manifestly failed. The number of UK
and NATO troops has gone on rising, but the Taliban are resurgent.
Poppy production has reached record levels.

But there is a chink of light on the horizon: an intelligent economic
idea which may achieve far more in terms of pacifying the country
than extra bombs and bullets. Western governments should buy the
poppy crops from the farmers, thereby undermining support for the
Taliban and removing the main flow of opium to Europe at a stroke -
and at a tiny fraction of the cost of the operations currently planned.

This idea has appeared from time to time on the fringes of the debate
about strategy in Afghanistan, but has so far been resolutely ignored
by the governments involved.

But opinion may be starting to shift. Reports from Brussels in the
past few days suggest the possibility of legalising opium production
in Afghanistan has finally crept on to the agenda in Berlin, Paris
and Rome, the idea being to enable the farmers to sell poppies to
officially licensed buyers who would then sell what they purchased on
to the pharmaceutical industry.

This would be a good start, but it does not go anywhere near far
enough. There is certainly a shortage of opiate-based pain killers:
another 55 tons are needed for cancer care in developed countries
every year. But Afghanistan produces 6,000 tons of opium annually.
Medical uses alone will not provide an adequate outlet. For the
entire crop to be removed in a way which leaves the farmers with
adequate incomes, governments need to step in and purchase the lot,
divert as much as possible to medical uses and destroy the rest.

Such a policy would greatly increase the chances of NATO's political
objectives being achieved. Under the current strategy, the military
situation has grown worse. Insurgent attacks escalated sharply in 2006.

The number of roadside bombings doubled and "direct attacks" (no
fewer than 4,500) were up by a third. And all this while American
troop levels in the country increased from 18,000 in 2005 to 27,000.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that increasing the number of
soldiers doesn't work.

Equally, despite increasingly determined efforts to destroy poppy
crops, the drug trade has expanded hugely. Opium production rose from
3,400 to 6,000 tons between 2002 and 2006. Moreover, the policy has
fuelled the insurgency, alienating the farmers who face starvation if
they cannot grow their only profitable crop, driving them into the
arms of the Taliban for protection, and creating a source of finance
for the Taliban's military operations.

A recent poll of several thousand men in Kandahar and Helmand by the
Senlis Council, a Brussels-based think-tank, found Taliban support
among civilians has jumped to nearly 27 per cent. Plainly, a change
of strategy is urgent.

The British commander, General David Richards, warned before
Christmas that the Afghan population could start switching its
allegiance en masse to the Taliban unless their lives improved within
months. He said: "If we collectively do not start achieving concrete
and visible improvement, then some 70 per cent of Afghans could
switch sides." If this didn't happen, he went on, "You can pour an
additional 10,000 troops in next year and we would not succeed
because we would have lost by then the consent of the people". The
Senlis poll shows that exactly the shift in opinion he feared is taking place.

So what would it cost to buy the poppy crop? The amount would be tiny
when set against the current policy combination of aggressive
military action and crop eradication, which will have cost $155bn
(UKP 79bn) by 2008. The retail value of Afghan heroin is around
$120bn, but, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, only
about $2.7bn of this is paid to producers and their agents in
Afghan-istan. Split between the Nato countries, the cost of buying
the poppy harvest would be negligible.

The British Government should actively advocate the radical option
set out here. If nothing changes, the UK will be faced as usual with
making the largest contribution, apart from the US, to an apparently
endless military struggle, with casualties rising for many years to come.

On the other hand, if the poppy crops are purchased, the source of
almost 95 per cent of the heroin in Britain will be taken out. As the
wave of cheap heroin comes to an end, NHS spending on the
consequences of drug addiction, and government spending on combating
drug-related crime, can both be expected to drop markedly.

Totting up the benefits and costs of a change of strategy, we have on
one side of the ledger: a real chance of winning the hearts and minds
of the Afghan farmers, so undermining the Taliban insurgency; the
removal of an important source of finance for the Taliban;
eradication of the main source of supply of the world's heroin;
important medical benefits; and reductions in drug addiction and
crime in the UK. In return for, on the other side, scarcely
noticeable initial expenditure on the purchase of the crops, and the
prospect of enormous further savings if the war in Afghanistan can be
scaled down or shortened as the allegiance of the farmers is regained.

To use an American phrase, buying the poppy crop is a "no brainer".