Report: Afghan Opium Stymies U.S. Efforts

[cal04]

Opium production and trafficking account for one-third of Afghanistan's economy and is complicating U.S. efforts to rebuild the country and its government, a State Department report said Wednesday. The number of acres under opium cultivation dropped 48 percent last year, but output declined by only 10 percent because of good weather, the report said. Opium is the main ingredient of heroin.

``Afghanistan's huge drug trade severely impacts efforts to rebuild the economy, develop a strong democratic government based on rule of law, and threatens regional stability,'' the report said. It said dangerous security conditions and corruption are hindering government and international efforts to combat the drug trade and provide alternative incomes.

The reduction in planting, the report said, may be credited to several factors, including a surplus crop from 2004 and public information efforts against poppy cultivation. The annual report, mandated by Congress, was released shortly after President Bush made an unannounced four-hour visit to Afghanistan while en route to India. The 900-page study, titled ``International Narcotics Control Strategy Report,'' examines production, trafficking, money laundering and financial crimes in all countries.

The report offered a generally upbeat assessment of the situation in Colombia, the world's leading producer of cocaine. Colombia had a record year in 2005 for drug eradication and interdiction, and in the extradition of suspected traffickers to the United States, the report said. Even so, the report said the Colombian government detected ``massive replanting and reconstitution efforts'' by traffickers in some areas. Cocaine is derived from coca, which is cultivated largely in areas under the control of illegal armed groups that earn substantial sums from trafficking in cocaine and heroin.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5656957,00.html

[Whoa_Nelly]

1. But, but...in 2001, Cheney went there and gave them $40m+

when they promised to stop growing the poppy crops.

Yeah...am sure that's what that money was really all about... :sarcasm:

[MichiganVote]

2. But I thought we liked the Afghan entrepreneurs

[Warpy]

3. Catch a clue, people, and LEGALIZE IT

Drive the price down, put them out of business that way.

Junkies will get a safer supply and maybe live long enough to go through rehab.

Most people who try the stuff don't go on to become addicts. I'm one of the examples of that, I didn't like the stuff at all.

Consider that 10,800+ patients were followed in Boston in the 80s, patients who had gotten opiates during hospital stays. Out of that many people, guess how many new addictions they found?

Go on, guess.

Really?


They found four new addictions. I can live with a statistic like that.