Posted on 11/20/2004 10:12:36 AM PST by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
KABUL, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai said fighting the booming opium trade is a top priority, following a UN report warning that Afghanistan risks becoming a “ nacro-state.” But he rejected a US proposal to spray poppies with herbicides, citing health risks.
A UN survey released this week showed Afghanistan this year supplied 87 percent of the world’s opium - the raw material for heroin - following record-high cultivation that has skyrocketed since the fall of the Taleban in 2001.
The heroin industry undermines Afghanistan’s democracy and puts money into the coffers of terrorists, the UN report said, adding that the “ fear that Afghanistan might degenerate into a narco-state is slowly becoming a reality.”
Afghan and Western counter-narcotics officials have said that US experts are looking at using crop dusters to spray opium poppies with herbicides - a key weapon in the disputed US -backed war against coca farmers in South America.
But Karzai said he opposed aerial spraying because of concerns over side effects among residents in farming communities close to the fields.
“ While emphasizing its strong commitment to the eradication of poppy fields, the government of Afghanistan opposes the aerial spraying of poppy fields as an instrument of eradication,” Karzai’s office said in a statement following Thursday’s UN report.
The U.S.-backed leader expressed alarm at reports from the key poppy-growing province of Nangarhar, close to the Pakistani border, that planes had already sprayed fields planted with poppy.
“ The president is deeply concerned about complaints from the region pointing to possible side effects of the aerial spraying on the health of children and adults,” the statement said.
Officials will travel to the area to investigate, it said.
The United States and Britain are training small paramilitary units to smash laboratories and arrest drug suspects. Nangarhar has been earmarked for vigorous crop eradication.
But it is unclear whether officials already have begun experimenting with herbicides, which critics say can wipe out legal crops planted nearby as well as harming villagers and livestock.
Officials in Kabul could not be reached immediately for comment, but Mohammed Daoud, the Afghan deputy interior minister for counter-narcotics, told AP recently that the planes “ could be useful, and would frighten people” - but said they should only be used as a last resort.
One Western official involved in Afghan drug policy said in an interview last month that spraying was “ not going to be imposed on anybody” without Afghan government support.
In recent years, Afghanistan has used squads of laborers to thrash down poppy crops, but that has had little impact on drug output.
The annual survey released Thursday by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime found poppy cultivation rose 64 percent to a record 131,000 hectares (323,700 acres) in 2004, producing an estimated 4,200 tons of opium. It valued the trade at US$2.8 billion (euro2.15 billion), or more than 60 percent of Afghanistan’s 2003 gross domestic product.
On Wednesday, US drug enforcement agencies asked Congress for an additional US$780 million (euro599 million) to fund both the crackdown and provide alternative crops or livelihoods for farmers.
Pressure is also mounting to snatch big smugglers - believed to include a string of government officials - and officials say judges have already been recruited for a special court to try suspected drug kingpins.
Mirwais Yasini, the head of Afghanistan’s Counter-narcotics Directorate, said Thursday that this year’s surge in production only added to the urgency.
“ It is undermining our national security, it is undermining our good name in the international community,” he said. “ We cannot live with this dragon any more.”
When legalization is suggested, it is always assumed that everybody in the country will automatically become an addict the second legalization is passed. I do not know one person that would run right out and buy a joint or do a line of cocaine if it was legal. I bet you don't either. The fact is that nobody knows what would happen....it has never been tried. Some famous person said that the defination of insanity(or maybe stupidity or both) was doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results. The wod fits the bill here....doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results. How crazy is that?
Thank you, thank you, thank you. God! How I wish the MSM would report this central FACT.
I seem to recall hearing about roses being tried as a substitute crop. Regardless of what crop is used as a substitute, it won't happen overnight.
"The addicts and recreational users in this country and the west are the guilty parties. Lay off the poor farmers and quit subjecting them to these poisons."
"Thank you, thank you, thank you. God! How I wish the MSM would report this central FACT."
Just what are they so guilty of? If the stupid laws didn't exist, what would they be guilty of? Who are we protecting here. Just like in the Prohibition era we've got people making enormous profits off of selling illegal substances that grow like weeds on every continent on this planet. The competition for this money makes it worthwhile for some people to kill for. Is it worth people dying over? Let people be free enough to make their own decisions. Everyone hates do gooders. Don't worry about drugs until they personally effect you. At this rate everything will be illegal because some do gooder knows what's best for everyone else. That's my 2 cents.
I have a niece who has contracted Hep C and is spending time in psych unit...drug-related. She's only high school age. Her life is pretty-well screwed up.
Oh? It's not ME? Close enough for government work, my friend. I do hope it never affects you or your loved-ones.
Loggers don't produce lumber either right?
"I have a niece who has contracted Hep C and is spending time in psych unit...drug-related. She's only high school age. Her life is pretty-well screwed up."
I'm sorry to hear that. But what have our current laws done to save her from this? They've actually created the drug culture where experimentation and such is the "in" thing to do. It's obvious that our current laws didn't save your niece from this experience.
No doubt about it, Capitalism rocks.
Very different. The people growing poppies do so in order to survive. It is very simple. Poppies grow in areas that can not sustain other types of crops. Without them, these people would be dead. They already live on the extreme end of the poverty scale as is. Notice that the places that grow poppies, Afghanistan, Burma, Laos, etc.. are already the poorest countries in the world?
We could easily help them turn their lives around with a little research and help but instead you advocate killing them all with land mines. Way to go there. The ugly American lives.
Your grief is obvious, and probably hits home to many more of us, but it wasn't drug use that she got Hep C from, it was the way she took the drug, dirty/shared needles perhaps? Someone earlier posted that we've been dealing with alcoholics since the beginning of time, I would add the same is true for druggies. Prohibition drove alcohol underground, and did the same for once legal drug's. Neither have been illegal since the beginning of time, and we managed to survive it. My 2 Cents! Blackbird.
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