14 June 2004

by Anai Rhoads

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AnaiRhoads.org - Afghanistan has risen up from a two-year dormancy to once again gain first place as the world's largest cultivator and producer of opium and heroin.

According to the 2004 White House National Drug Control Strategy, Afghani crops in 2003 doubled the previous year, showing how the enervate policies of the Bush Administration dominate the drug war.

For every three Afghan farmers, two hope to double their poppy crop by the end of 2004 according to a recent United Nations report.

The anti-terror policy in Afghanistan "has been undercut by the rebirth of the Afghani poppy, the main ingredient in heroin," according to the article, "Afghanistan: Eradicate Poppy Fields, Terror Funding".

"With warlords and farmers making six to 100 times more on poppy than any other cash crop, the administration's policy will not affect poppy farmers' habits without massive eradication and enforcement. Similar economic programs had only minuscule effect in Colombia until Plan Colombia aggressively eradicated the drugs," said the authors Robert Weiner, a former White House Drug Policy spokesman, and Jeffrey Buchanan from the Johns Hopkins University

"Where are the planes spraying and destroying the drug fields in Afghanistan as we spray in Colombia? Where is the massive training to involve our thousands of troops -- not just by the six to 10 anti-drug experts returning from one-week Drug Enforcement Administration courses in Turkey and Uzbekistan as is now done?"

Weiner and Buchanan ask that President Bush and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai discuss the growing drug problem during their scheduled 15 June meeting.

"Unless President Bush and President Karzai make an announcement of an enhanced plan against opium and heroin, their meeting will be a failure, because it will fail to truly stop terror and the source of terror's funding, the whole reason we went into Afghanistan in the first place," Weiner said.

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