Pubdate: Fri, 7 Dec 2007
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2007 The Toronto Star
Contact:  http://www.thestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456
Authors: David Eaves, Taylor Owen
Note: David Eaves is a frequent commentator on public policy. Taylor 
Owen is a doctoral student and Trudeau Scholar at the University of Oxford.

War on Drugs

FAILED STRATEGY CONNECTS AFGHAN FIELDS, CITY STREETS

In the coming months, under the leadership of the former U.S. 
ambassador to Colombia, U.S. private contractors will likely attempt 
to fumigate poppies in Afghanistan. Around the same time, the 
Canadian government will decide whether to shut down the Insite 
supervised injection site in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

The two policies are inextricably linked and unambiguously bad.

In April, the United States appointed William Wood, nicknamed 
"Chemical Bill," its new ambassador to Afghanistan. In his previous 
post, Wood championed and oversaw the fumigation of large swaths of 
the Colombian countryside. The result? For every 67 acres sprayed, 
only one acre of coca was eradicated. Moreover, production increased 
by 36 per cent. In addition, the spraying negatively impacted 
legitimate crops, contaminated water supplies and increased 
respiratory infections among the exposed populations.

Wood is in Kabul for a single reason - to execute a similar plan in 
Afghanistan. Poppy production, once held in check by the Taliban 
government, is exploding - up 60 per cent in 2006. Poppies yield 10 
times the value of wheat, so it is unsurprising that about 10 per 
cent of an otherwise impoverished Afghan population partakes in the 
illicit poppy harvest. It earns them upwards of $3 billion (U.S.) a 
year, or roughly 65 per cent of Afghan GDP.

The short-term economic costs and long-term development and health 
impacts of fumigation will be borne by those whose livelihoods are 
both directly and indirectly connected to poppy cultivation.

Spraying could easily cause public opinion to turn against the Karzai 
administration and NATO forces, further compromising the mission and 
increasing the danger to Canadian soldiers.

Given the increased risks this policy poses to both our soldiers and 
the overall mission, the government's silence is unconscionable. 
Others have not been so quiet. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown 
recently observed that there is little international support for 
fumigation. He announced an alternative policy to wean farmers off of 
opium, one that includes an ambitious plan to top up payments for 
legal crops, such as wheat.

Such policies, however, are only part of a long-term project. Success 
will require a holistic view, one that understands the connections 
between the consumption of illicit drugs in places like Vancouver and 
their cultivation in Afghanistan. Specifically, this means tackling 
the demand for opiates. Although 90 per cent of world heroin comes 
from Afghanistan, the vast majority is consumed in western countries.

Blaming Afghan farmers for the problem is as hypocritical as it is ineffective.

Reducing the cultivation of poppies in Afghanistan begins not on the 
streets of Kandahar, but on the streets of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Fortunately, such policies exist. Insite, Vancouver's supervised 
injection site, offers a real first step toward reducing poppy 
cultivation. This small storefront provides drug users with a 
sanitary and safe place to inject in the presence of registered 
nurses. The result: 21 peer-reviewed studies document how Insite 
diminishes public drug use, reduces the spread of HIV and increases 
the number of users who enter detox programs.

But Insite does more than get drug use off the street. It is a portal 
into the health-care system for addicts who are too often shut out. 
Drug users who visit Insite are an astounding 33 per cent more likely 
to enlist in a detoxification program. Indeed, Insite has added a 
second facility, called Onsite, that capitalizes on this success by 
allowing drug users to immediately access detox and drug treatment 
services on demand.

Sadly, the Harper government remains ideologically opposed to Insite. 
It is unclear if the federal government possesses the legal authority 
to close the site but there is significant concern it will attempt to 
do so within six months.

The Conservatives should be looking to scale Insite nationally, not 
contemplating its closing. A national network of injection sites 
could dramatically reduce heroin use in Canada by channelling more 
drug users into drug treatment programs. Diminishing the demand for 
heroin would in turn devalue the poppies from which it is derived. 
Changing this economic equation is both safer and more effective than 
fumigation if the goal is shifting Afghan production from poppies to 
legal crops. Admittedly, Canada's share of the global consumption of 
heroin is relatively small, but our success could provide a powerful 
and effective example to the international community.

To many Canadians, Afghanistan is a world away. But the lives of drug 
users outside Vancouver's Carnegie Centre and those of our soldiers 
in Kandahar are bound together - linked by the international opium 
trade. What we do in Afghanistan shapes events in Vancouver's 
Downtown Eastside, and vice versa. Canada's soldiers, drug users and 
ordinary citizens deserve a government that recognizes this reality.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake