Medicinal heroin


The opium problem in Afghanistan is being addressed in a careless and destructive way, resulting in more harm than good (Fixing Afghanistan Op-Ed, Friday).

The United States is trying to get rid of the opium problem by poppy-crop eradication. This method of simply destroying the opium at its source is far from being an ideal solution, and the children of families left with no livelihoods are the next generation of insurgents.

Aggressive counternarcotics policies, such as eradication, only make enemies of the very people the military is working so hard to protect. Moreover, the fact that poppy cultivation hit record levels in 2007 demonstrates the abject failure of current policy.

The Poppy for Medicine pilot program proposed by the Senlis Council proffers a hopeful solution. Eighty percent of the world's population does not have access to affordable morphine, while tons of Afghan opium goes to waste.

Under the pilot program, opium would be made into morphine locally and sold internationally. As the world's biggest opium producer, Afghanistan has great potential to contribute to the international pharmaceutical market. Profits would be taxed in Kabul, bringing the country's main export into the formal economy at last.

Development policy of this kind would certainly help to convince the Afghan people that we are on their side.

While the military expends effort to win hearts and minds, its success is being destroyed by inflammatory and ineffective counternarcotics policies. Unless harsh, unrealistic policies are overhauled, Afghanistan will be a country at war with an economy pegged to the value of heroin for the foreseeable future.



Paul Burton, Director of Policy Analysis, The Senlis Council