OMINOUSLY, AFGHAN POPPIES RETURN

Fledgling Government Cites Inability To Block Resurgent Opium Trade

UNITED NATIONS - Afghans, aware that their fragile new government is unable
to enforce a ban on poppy cultivation, are poised to flood the world market
this spring with near-record supplies of opium, UN specialists and
international law enforcement officials warned yesterday.

Fields of poppies, planted amid the chaos of last fall's US-led bombing
campaign, could yield thousands of tons of raw opium when harvested next
month - nearly as much as Afghanistan produced before the Taliban banned
cultivation in 2000, the specialists said. The resin from opium is used to
make heroin.

Interim president Hamid Karzai renewed the Taliban's ban on poppy
cultivation and drug production last month. But the new government's
authority is shaky, and some regional governors have conceded they are
powerless to stop impoverished farmers from harvesting the crop.

"We are deeply concerned. Afghanistan clearly has the capability to again
become the world's largest producer of heroin," said Herbert Okun, the US
representative to the UN International Narcotics Control Board. The panel,
in its annual report released yesterday, called on the international
community to help Afghanistan halt drug trafficking.

Added Kemal Kurspahic of the UN's Office for Drug Control and Crime
Prevention in Vienna: "We appreciate Karzai's commitment ... but there is
no law enforcement capability to enforce his ban." The UN agency will
release a separate assessment of Afghanistan's drug situation in a report
later this week.

Their warning comes just a day after President Bush acknowledged that
Afghanistan had failed in its antinarcotics efforts, but said the country
should still receive American financial assistance. His assessment was part
of an annual review of 23 countries involved in drug production or
trafficking; countries that fail to cooperate in the antidrug effort can
receive economic sanctions.

Afghanistan has traditionally produced some 70 percent of the world's
opium, the vast majority of which goes to Europe. In 1999, it set a record
with 4,950 tons of opium, more than any other country.

While four years of drought have turned rich Afghan farmland to desert,
poppies can thrive with little moisture. Wheat, for example, requires four
times as much water.

The country's hard-line Taliban regime, under pressure and the threat of
sanctions from the United Nations, first restricted and then banned poppy
cultivation, cutting production to almost nothing in 2001.

At first, Afghanistan's compliance was hailed as a success story in the
world battle against drugs. But it became clear that poppies were still
being cultivated in territories controlled by the Northern Alliance - and,
additionally, that the Taliban had stockpiled opium, for which the price
had soared.

Opium prices in Afghanistan last year hit an all-time high, and a kilo of
the purest heroin was selling for as much as $5,000, according to the US
Drug Enforcement Agency.

Last fall, as the United States launched its bombing campaign against the
Taliban regime, cash-strapped farmers and warlords eager to make a profit
sowed the country's fields with poppies once again.

Now, the question before Afghanistan's new government, and the
international community invested in its reconstruction, is how best to
combat the lure of opium production. With no national army or police force
as yet, Afghanistan's two-month-old government stands little chance of
enforcing its ban on the harvest.

Indeed, the regional government of Afghanistan's Helmand province, where
more than half of the country's poppy crop has traditionally been grown,
recently said it wouldn't even try to halt farmers from harvesting the crop.

"If we try to enforce a ban on the farmers, it wouldn't be good for us,"
said Haji Pir Mohammed, top deputy to the provincial governor. "Our
government is still not stable."

A variety of solutions are under debate, from substituting new crops for
the poppies to buying the harvest and then destroying it. "We have to help
farmers," said Okun, whose International Narcotics Control Board has
appealed for more financial help for Afghanistan.

Some European governments, such as Britain, have targeted part of their
contribution to Afghanistan's reconstruction for combating drugs. But law
enforcement officials concede that all solutions, for the moment, are
long-term.

In the interim, some European countries, including Britain, with an
estimated 270,000 heroin users, are bracing for a fresh onslaught of heroin
on their streets.

Said a spokesman for the Home Office in Britain, "We recognize this is a
serious threat."