Afghanistan agrees with Russia on narcotics problem.

DUSHANBE, February 26 (Itar-Tass) -- Afghanistan shares Russia's idea
that the destruction of opium poppy plantations is the most effective way
of stopping the production of narcotics, Abdullodzhon Rahmonel, head of
the Kabul Police Academy, and Hikmatullo Rahimi, head of the regional
department for control over illegal drug trafficking in Heart Province,
said in an interview with the independent Tajik weekly Asia Plus.
"We support Russia's stand, because members of the Taliban movement
live and buy weapons on the revenues from the sale of Afghan narcotics. If
they have no narcotics, they will have no weapons," Afghan drug police
officers believe. They regard as absolutely erroneous the stand of a
number of foreign organisations, including U.N. experts, who maintain that
"poverty is the may reason why Afghan peasants cultivate
narcotics-containing plants. This is why, before destroying their
plantations, it is necessary to get peasants interested in the cultivation
of other crops."
"Previously we did not cultivate opium in such amounts, but still made
our living. Now we shall also be able to survive," the Afghan policemen
are sure. The newspaper quoted the recent public statement of Richard
Holbrook, special representative of the U.S. President for Afghanistan and
Pakistan, about differences with Russia over the destruction of opium
poppy plantations in Afghanistan. He said that while the Russian
government believed that the destruction of poppy plantations was the key
to the solution of the problem, they believe that this would create
opportunities for the Taliban movement to recruit new members among
peasants.
The Afghan police officers expressed negative opinion of the role
played by the coalition troops, because after their arrival in
Afghanistan, narcotics began to be produced even in the provinces, where
they had not been produced before. "In other words, where Britons and
Americans are deployed, the production of drug-containing crops and of
narcotics is obviously growing," they said.
Starting from 2001, the production of raw opium in Afghanistan grew by
dozens of times, Russian experts say. This year specialists forecast the
poppy yield in Afghanistan amounting to no less than 6,000 tons, which
will be enough to produce 600 tons of heroin. Afghanistan holds the first
place in the world by the cultivation of hemp, needed for the production
of hashish and marijuana. Over the past decade the Tajik security services
together with their Afghan colleagues confiscated 10 tons of narcotics,
mostly opium and heroin, and bombed 27 narcotics-producing laboratories
during air raids.
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