HEROIN BUY-UP MOOTED TO STEM AFGHAN TRADE

Britain and the United States are to devote millions of dollars to try to
end Afghanistan's heroin trade.

One option being considered is to buy this year's entire opium harvest at
black-market prices - on the condition that farmers then plough up their
poppy fields and sow a different crop.

The move to tackle the menace of heroin came as new evidence emerged that
warlords of the Northern Alliance were conniving in the renewed planting of
poppy fields under the cover of war.

United Nations drug monitors say the weakening Taliban grip over
drug-producing areas of Afghanistan has allowed farmers to exploit the last
weeks of the sowing season.

Kemal Kurspahic, a spokesman for the Vienna-based UN Office of Drug Control
and Crime Prevention, said: "The sowing season is October and early
November. Many farmers are now free of Taliban control, and our staff in
Pakistan have received reports that some are planting. We will only know in
February how many poppy fields there are when they begin to grow."

Although the US and Britain had accused the Taliban of relaxing their ban
on poppy farming, the UN says farmers are acting out of desperation and the
absence of anyone to enforce the proscription of the trade. It also
believes that the bulk of the drug is being produced in Northern Alliance
strongholds.

One, Badakhshan, was responsible for 83 per cent of the crop produced last
year, earning as much as $A100 million for the producers. The total for
this year is expected to be still higher as farmers, lured by high prices,
have for the first time grown a second crop.

A return to the record levels of opium produced before the ban imposed by
the Taliban would be a big embarrassment to Britain and the US, which have
repeatedly cited the regime's involvement in the drugs trade as a
justification for military action.

However, with farmers being paid as much as $A700 a kilogram last year,
experts concede that eradication will be extremely difficult, even if the
new government in Kabul co-operates, of which the UN is far from certain.

Production of raw opium fell by 94 per cent after it was outlawed by the
Taliban.