Pubdate: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 Source: Boston Globe (MA) Copyright: 2009 Globe Newspaper Company Contact: http://bostonglobe.com/news/opeds/letter.aspx?id=6340 Website: http://www.boston.com/globe/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52 WRONG FRONT FOR THE DRUG WAR The Obama administration is committing 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. Yet as the United States works to stabilize that country, the most important decisions don't just involve troop and funding levels. Also vital is ending the prohibition on growing opium poppies - for the policy is a key factor in Afghanistan's economic and security crisis. Since the US invasion in 2001, the American and Afghan governments have made the poppy-growing areas of Afghanistan, which produce 90 percent of the world's opium, a major front in the war on drugs. Yet despite eight years of efforts to eliminate the crop, farmers keep growing poppies, and the crop still reaches the black market. Earlier this month, the United Nations released a report anticipating lower poppy production in 2009 and touting the fact that some provinces have been declared poppy-free as a sign of success. This claim is deceptive. While some provinces that were comparatively new at growing poppy are now poppy-free, the crop is still entrenched in areas of southern Afghanistan, where it has historically been a significant part of the economy. In these areas, eradication will be much more difficult if not impossible. Eradication is not just an ineffective strategy, but also hurts the security interests of Afghanistan and Western governments. While the United States invests $1 billion in eradication efforts each year, the Taliban profits by purchasing poppy from farmers who have no one else to sell to, and selling it to the black market. Also, the eradication policy fuels anti-Western hatred when farmers become sympathetic to insurgent groups after the US and Afghan governments burn or spray their only source of income. The eradication policy remains in place even though it is widely recognized as a failure. Richard Holbrooke, Obama's new envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, last year called the eradication program "the single most ineffective program in the history of American foreign policy." A better option would be to set up a legal market for opium poppies. This has already happened in other countries, such as Tur key and India. The International Narcotics Control Board could regulate the growth of opium in Afghanistan for medical and scientific purposes. The drugs would be bought by pharmaceutical companies around the world for the production of licit drugs. Such a program in Afghanistan would not only save the American government money and decrease the amount of drugs and money funneled through the Taliban; it would also allow the poppy to be put to good use by decreasing the production cost of drugs like morphine. Even if this model allowed some leaks to the black market, a wall with some holes is better than no wall at all.