US Announces Shift in Afghanistan Drug Policy

[tekisui]

Source: AP

TRIESTE, Italy – The United States has announced a new drug policy for opium-rich Afghanistan, saying it was phasing out funding for eradication programs while significantly increasing its funding for alternate crop and drug interdiction efforts.

The U.S. envoy for Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, told The Associated Press on Saturday that eradication programs weren't working and were only driving farmers into the hands of the Taliban.

"Eradication is a waste of money," Holbrooke said on the sidelines of a Group of Eight foreign ministers' meeting on Afghanistan, during which he briefed regional representatives on the new policy.

The G-8 ministers "strongly appreciated" the shift, which also includes an increase in annual U.S. funding for agricultural development from a few million dollars to a few hundred million dollars, said Foreign Minister Franco Frattini of Italy, the current G-8 president.

Officials at Afghanistan's Interior Ministry and Counternarcotics Ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.

Afghanistan is the world's leading source of opium, cultivating 93 percent of the world's heroin-producing crop. The United Nations has estimated the Taliban and other Afghan militants made $50 million to $70 million of last year's opium and heroin trade.

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[kenny blankenship]

1. Besides which our good friends there must be allowed to profit from the refining and export of H.