When teachers at Herder school in north Germany discovered a chocolate cake outside their room, they suspected nothing. Pupils had often brought in cakes to raise money for charity, so staff sliced it up and tucked in. But before too long, 10 teachers from the elite school in Lüneburg started trembling, feeling unwell and suffering from hallucinations. Police called in to investigate confirmed that the cake had contained large amounts of hashish. All 10 teachers were treated at a clinic after eating the cake on Wednesday but were later released. The remains of the cake were being examined, police spokesman Michael Düker said. [continues 131 words]
With The Taliban Gone, Opium Poppies Carry The Peasants' Hopes Of Prosperity When fighting broke out in Afghanistan late last year, Fahzel Rahman went to his cellar and brought out some tiny yellow seeds. In a small plot next to his mud house, he scattered the seeds in the ground. Last week he surveyed his burgeoning poppy field with pride. "You'd be stupid not to grow opium," he said, gesturing at the lettuce-like plants pushing out of the cracked earth. "If the Americans give us some money, we'll stop planting poppy. If they don't, we'll carry on." [continues 1019 words]
Edict Reverses Policy That Wiped Out Crop In a dramatic and little-noticed reversal of policy, the Taliban have told farmers in Afghanistan that they are free to start planting poppy seeds again if the Americans decide to launch a military attack. Drug enforcement agencies last night confirmed that they expect to see a massive resumption of opium cultivation inside Afghanistan, previously the world's biggest supplier of heroin, in the next few weeks. The Taliban virtually eradicated Afghanistan's opium crop last season after an edict by Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader. [continues 603 words]
The mud-walled village of Hadda in southeastern Afghanistan used to consider itself lucky. Its farmers had two lucrative sources of income: Buddhist relics that could be dug out in darkness from the ancient shrines that littered thevalley and its jagged white mountains, and opium, a crop that every April transformed the landscape into a sea of green and red. But this year things are different. In a development that has gone unnoticed and unrewarded by the international community, Afghanistan's fundamentalist Taliban rulers have ended the massive opium trade - a move that has plunged Hadda's farmers into despondency and debt. [continues 602 words]
The long-running media saga enveloping the Home Secretary Jack Straw was brought to a predictable conclusion last night when his son William was cautioned by police. Scotland Yard said William, aged 17, received the caution following allegations he had supplied cannabis to a Mirror reporter. He earlier attended Kennington police station, in south London, with his father. A police spokesman said no further action would be taken against Mirror reporter Dawn Alford, who was arrested by police after she bought 1.92 grammes of cannabis resin from the teenager. [continues 213 words]
