AFGHANISTAN -- NEW WAR ON DRUGS?

Nations attempting to rebuild Afghanistan may swap a war on terrorism
for a war on drugs.

One of the strict rules the Taliban regime brought to the country was
a ban on growing the opium poppy, the plant used as the source of
heroin. With the defeat of the Taliban, the harsh anti-drug laws
imposed by the Islamic government have fallen by the wayside, and
poppy fields are greening with new growth.

The United Nations drug control analysts acknowledge that poppy
plantations that had been abolished on religious grounds are under
renewed cultivation. Of particular concern is an increase of drug
growing in the former heroin strongholds of Kandahar and Nangarhar
provinces, experts say.

Keep in mind that the Taliban also raised money by dealing in opium.
The U.S. State Department recently reported that the fundamentalist
regime may have been earning as much as $50 million a year by quietly
skimming drug profits, thus creating a source of cash for buying weapons.

Still, American drug enforcement officials and the U.N. say the
Taliban's ban on opium cultivation imposed in July 2000 was
successful, reducing heroin exports by 90 percent. Most of the refined
opium and heroin was smuggled to Pakistan, Iran and Russia. Roughly
half ended up on the European market, and some 20 percent of the U.S.
heroin supply was believed to have come from Afghanistan.

Now that Taliban rule has ended, poor farmers who had been punished
for growing poppies are now starting new crops rather than growing
vegetables. One news report said Afghan farmers may receive about 3
cents for a pound of wheat while a pound of raw opium brings in at
least $15.

Consequently, many farmers who have access to limited amounts of water
for irrigation are now using it to produce a new crop of opium
poppies. Therein lies a challenge for the United Nations and the
countries involved in leading the redevelopment of Afghanistan. A U.N.
estimate has put the five-year cost of a redevelopment program at $9
billion, which involves everything from rebuilding roads to security
measures to agricultural programs.

The U.S. has said it plans to concentrate its initial efforts on
agricultural projects and those that improve the situation of women in
Afghanistan.

Afghanistan was once a country known for grain crops and productive
orchards. Restoring the nation's agricultural economy while
discouraging the cultivation of poppy fields and smuggling of opium
will present a greater challenge than routing the Taliban and al-Qaida
fighters. In lawless nation in the center of an area known for poppy-
growing and drug production, that may be an impossible task.