AFGHAN CASUALTY: ANTI-DRUG EFFORT

A Drop In Europe's Narcotics Prices Fuels Concern Of Afghans Selling Drug
Stocks To Buy Arms.

Just a few months ago, US officials had begrudging praise for the Taliban
for banning the opium-producing poppy from the farmlands of Afghanistan.

Now, that praise is forgotten. Not only are the Taliban protectors of
terrorists, in Washington's eyes, they have once again emerged as a major
world supplier of drugs, particularly opium and heroin.

Recent reports in Europe of falling narcotics prices set off alarm bells
that Afghan drug smugglers may be selling off stockpiles to pay for weapons.

There's no proof as yet, say officials, that Afghan opium has begun to
flood the market - drug seizures in Pakistan actually fell 50 percent this
year, perhaps because of tighter security on the Afghan-Pakistan border.
But Pakistani and international drug-control officials are bracing for a
worst-case scenario, as the West launches what may be a prolonged war
against a nation that in the past decade became the largest source of opium
in the world.

"Opium has always been a part of the Afghan economy. It has played a role
as currency and a source of savings for farmers, and in times of crisis,
they sold their stocks to get cash," says Bernard Frahi, director of the
Afghan program of the United Nations Drug Control Program in Islamabad,
Pakistan.

What makes the present situation dangerous, Mr. Frahi adds, is that
Afghanistan's present rulers, as well as the opposition Northern Alliance,
could use opium stockpiles to help fund their war efforts. In the past, the
Taliban reportedly earned tens of millions from taxes on opium production.

While drug smugglers may be avoiding Pakistan's tighter borders, they could
easily go to neighboring states such as Iran, China, or the Central Asian
republics of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, or Turkmenistan.

"In these past days of financial crisis for these terrorist groups, one
might think that the Taliban and the Al Qaeda [terrorist network] would use
existing trafficking networks in order to get some immediate cash," says
Frahi. "After all, the [smuggler's] staff is available, and the opium and
the heroin labs are in the country."

Oddly enough, it is the very issue of drug control that the Taliban
consider to be one of their greatest successes. Pointing to Islamic
injunctions against drunkenness and addiction, Taliban's ruling leader,
Mullah Muhammad Omar issued an edict last year to ban poppy cultivation
outright. Faced with the threat of stiff financial and physical penalties,
including death, only 6 percent of the farmers in Taliban areas grew poppies.

"In Pakistan, we took 15 years to eradicate the opium poppy, but Mullah
Omar did it in one year," says one Pakistani drug-control official, in
private. "That is really commendable. It's amazing."

The feat came about with minimal foreign aid, due to Western disapproval of
the Taliban's human rights record, especially its harsh restrictions on
women. Once it verified the Taliban's success, the US announced $43 million
in humanitarian aid for Afghan farmers in May. (By contrast, the US last
year earmarked some $893 million for drug-control efforts in Colombia,
according to the State Department.)

On Wednesday, Mullah Omar said the ban remains in effect, the Afghan
Islamic Press reported. The statement came after UN officials earlier this
month said it appeared farmers were preparing fields for poppy crops.

The only part of Afghanistan that continued to produce opium was controlled
by the opposition Northern Alliance, which the US has aided against the
Taliban. This year's crop in alliance territory provided 10 percent of the
total world supply, making Afghanistan the second-largest opium producer,
after Burma (Myanmar).

While Afghanistan has been a source of opium for centuries, drugs only
became a major funding source for weapons in the early 1990s, as Islamic
holy warriors, or mujahideen, first fought retreating Soviet troops, then
turned against one other. By 1997, Afghanistan produced 2,800 tons of opium
annually, more than 80 percent of the total world supply.

Afghanistan produced so much, in fact, that it created a glut. This forced
down prices and encouraged opium and heroin distributors in Turkey, Europe,
and the US to stockpile drugs until prices rebounded. Some drug-control
experts say falling heroin prices on the streets of Amsterdam and Berlin
has more to do with a sell-off in Europe than in Afghanistan. After all,
they say, it takes months for smugglers to move drugs from the opium banks
of Afghanistan to the processing labs of Turkey to buyers in Paris.

In the gritty industrial city of Rawalpindi, next door to Islamabad, the
best place to measure the flow of heroin is in the back alleys, where
addicts smoke heroin off sheets of foil, withdrawing from life one puff at
a time.

For raspy-voiced Asad Ali, who has used heroin for 15 years, wartime was
always a good time. Opium farmers in Afghanistan would sell stockpiles for
cash, flooding the market and bringing prices down.

But that hasn't happened this time, at least, not yet. In fact, the street
price for heroin has gone up, from 15 rupees (24 cents) per gram last month
to 20 rupees (32 cents) today. "It's more costly now than before," says Mr.
Ali, emerging from the banks of a filthy catacomb where a river of garbage
flows. Higher prices do not deter him. "I get the money from begging," he
says. "I get heroin every day. And I get food."

At a private drug-rehabilitation clinic in Rawalpindi, former addict
Muhammad Omar (no relation to the Taliban leader), says he expects prices
to drop. "When the war in Afghanistan started, it seemed that it was going
to get hard to get drugs, because it all comes from there," he says. "If
the war continues, then the market will be flooded with heroin. It will be
dirt cheap."