The Drugs

AFGHANISTAN ISSUES ORDER TAKING HARD LINE ON OPIUM PRODUCTION

Afghanistan's interim leader issued a decree yesterday banning the
cultivation of opium poppies, reviving a struggle previously waged by the
Taliban against Afghanistan's most lucrative crop, United Nations officials
reported.

"All countrymen, especially peasants and farmers, are informed that from
now on, the cultivation, manufacturing, processing, impermissible use,
smuggle and trafficking of opium poppy and all its derivatives is declared
illegal," said the order issued by Hamid Karzai, the chairman of the
interim administration in Kabul. "Violators will be dealt with severely."

Without an army or police force, it was unlikely that Mr. Karzai would be
able to enforce the decree in a serious way. But the order came just days
before donor countries were to gather in Tokyo to pledge reconstruction aid
to Afghanistan, which may amount to $15 billion over the next decade.
There, Mr. Karzai is expected to seek help for crop-substitution programs
to encourage farmers to abandon poppies.

During the war with the Soviet Union in the 1980's, and in the first years
under the Taliban, with little governmental control over independent
warlords and farmers, Afghanistan developed into the world's largest
producer of opium, producing a record 4,950 tons in 1999.

In 2000, the Taliban cracked down hard on the growers, and production
plummeted. But Bernard Frahi, who represents the United Nations
International Drug Control Program in Afghanistan and Pakistan, said the
Taliban never took steps to destroy opium stockpiles or laboratories that
produced heroin from the opium.

With the collapse of the stern fundamentalist regime, production and
exports rapidly resumed, much of it heading north across the porous borders
with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and south into Pakistan. Mr.
Frahi said much of this represented efforts by traffickers to move stocks
to more secure places in other countries..

In recent weeks, Pakistan has announced the interception of several huge
shipments of drugs. Last week, the Pakistani police said they seized 1,390
pounds of heroin in southwestern Pakistan.