Pubdate: Sat, 19 Jan 2002
Source: New York Times (NY)
Section: International
Copyright: 2002 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Craig S. Smith

POPPY BAN PLEASES DEALERS IN OPIUM

ANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Ali Muhammad, a gregarious opium trader in a 
flowing brown robe and wrinkled black turban, was delighted by the news on 
Wednesday that his country's interim government had vowed to ban poppy 
cultivation, renewing a prohibition imposed under the ousted Taliban 
government that cut opium production by about 95 percent last year.

"We'll be rich," he said, sitting on an electric-blue carpet in one of the 
dozens of stalls that line this city's bustling opium market.

A crowd of other traders agreed. Since the Taliban fell from power, farmers 
have been planting more poppies, and middlemen have been dumping opium 
stocks into the market, sending prices plunging by half. The falling market 
has hurt merchants like Mr. Ali.

One of the traders pulled a fist-size chunk of raw opium out of a plastic 
bag and explained that a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of the black resin fetched 
40,000 Pakistani rupees in August, or about $650 at current exchange rates. 
But it is worth only 20,000 rupees a kilogram today.

If farmers continue to grow opium unimpeded, the trader said, the price 
could fall back to 2,000 rupees a kilogram, the level before the Taliban's 
ban, when opium was the biggest cash crop in the country and Afghanistan 
the largest opium producer in the world.

But Mr. Ali and his friends probably should not calculate their profits 
before the opium is sold. Many people question whether the loose alliance 
of warlords who have pledged allegiance to the interim government in Kabul 
have the political will to carry out the cultivation ban. Opium has long 
been the currency of power in this arid land.

"The people with guns will keep growing it, and big businessmen will 
benefit the most," predicted Hajji Abdul Rahman, an older trader in a white 
turban and beard. With a sharp tongue and dismissive flicks of his hands, 
he delivered a lecture on market economics to his younger colleagues, 
explaining that the gains from the ban for small traders like themselves 
would be short-lived, while higher prices would only make it more difficult 
for them to finance their businesses.

More significant than the cultivation ban, Mr. Rahman said, was the news 
that the new government might outlaw trading in the drug.

Even the Taliban allowed trading to continue while cultivation was banned, 
a move that many people suggested was a ploy to drive the value of the 
country's opium stocks higher while the government reaped the benefit of 
foreign aid tied to slowing opium production.

Hamid Karzai, the head of the Kabul government, may be playing a similar 
game. His announcement of the ban came just days before donor nations are 
to meet in Tokyo to discuss aid to his battered country. Most of 
Afghanistan's opium is smuggled across its borders and refined into heroin 
for sale in Europe.

Here in Kandahar, Muhammad Akram, the chief of police for four provinces 
that produce more than half of Afghanistan's opium, said he had heard that 
the ban would be put into effect in stages, a few provinces at a time. He 
has received no word that the ban yet extends to his region, but said he 
was ready to carry it out it if called upon to do so.

"We have talked to the farmers and said, 'If we help you, will you stop?' 
And they have said yes," Mr. Akram said, speaking in the dim light of a gas 
lamp during one of the city's frequent power outages.

Basher Muhammad, a wizened man squatting in a field of germinating opium 
just outside this town, conceded reluctantly that he would destroy his 
lucrative crop if forced to.

"But the farmers will gather and go to the governor's house and demand 
compensation," he said.

He said he had spent about $4,000 on his opium fields, including a year's 
rental for the land, which he planted with opium in November after the 
Taliban lost Kabul. He expects to scrape about 50 kilograms of raw opium 
from the capsules of the ripe poppies in April, enough to bring him nearly 
$17,000 at current prices.

But even if prices continue to fall, the opium will bring him far more than 
the radishes, spinach and okra that he grew when opium was banned. Those 
crops sell for pennies a kilogram in the local market.

"If we don't grow opium, we can't live," he said. 
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