Your article aptly highlights the opium crisis currently hindering stability, security and reconstruction efforts in southern Afghanistan. As a native Afghan who has spent many years in my homeland, it is the drug traffickers and Taliban, however, who profit from the country's burgeoning illegal opium economy. For the vast majority of impoverished Afghan farmers and sharecroppers, poppy cultivation is a desperate survival strategy.

The Senlis Council's village-based Poppy for Medicine scheme, which proposes to bring illegal poppy cultivation under control by granting farmers licences to grow poppies for medicinal use, is a viable alternative for the 3 million Afghans currently economically dependent on poppy cultivation for survival. Empowering local communities with sustainable livelihoods would encourage farmers to sever ties with the Taliban, which would have overwhelmingly positive repercussions for Canadian troops.

Not only would Poppy for Medicine projects allow for economic diversification within the rural communities, they would address the current global need for affordable morphine medicines, which is equal to Afghanistan's potential morphine output levels. This would enable Afghanistan to be a legitimate part of the international pharmaceutical market.

A fresh, pragmatic approach that aids and does not victimize Afghanistan's most impoverished people is urgently required to win back the hearts and minds vital to the success of the Canadian mission.Paul Burton


Almas Bawar Zakhilwal
Country Director, Canada
The Senlis Council


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