The Senlis Council, a think tank devoted to global drug policy, recently issued a report condemning the Canadian military deployment in Afghanistan as "an impossible mission which can only lead to significant military casualties" because it supports impotent American policies in the region aimed at depressing the illegal opium trade.

Prime Minister Harper responded by saying Canada is not directly enforcing poppy eradication programs, but that it supports such efforts and continues to advance "alternatives for agriculture."

The premise of both the report and Harper's comments is that the US wants to eliminate the illegal opium trade in Afghanistan, which provides 87 per cent of the world's illegal opium, and this premise is wrong.

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