cannabisnews.com: Afghans Turn To Old Friend: Opium





Afghans Turn To Old Friend: Opium
Posted by FoM on December 26, 2001 at 13:54:50 PT
By Craig Nelson, Cox News 
Source: Charlotte Observer
While there is doubt here that anything resembling law and order will bloom in the next six months, there is no doubt that opium poppies will - in abundance."Everyone is planting," says Ashoqullah, a 25-year-old landowner, who uses only one name. "In a few months, these fields will be covered in a blanket of spectacular red-and-white flowers. We'll draw the ooze from the flower bulbs, pack it in plastic bags or small soap cartons and sell it at the bazaar."
As Ashoqullah licks his lips over his future bounty, farmers are bent over in fields behind him, slashing at white heads of cauliflower and yanking spring onions from the soil. They are scurrying to harvest food crops so they can sow poppy seeds in this village near Jalalabad.The war on terrorism has eclipsed the war on drugs. The Taliban have been vanquished, and so has their ban on cultivating opium poppies.The prohibition, which carried the threat of a three-month jail sentence, produced a 96percent drop in production of raw opium, from more than 1million pounds in 1999 to 40,600 pounds this year, according to the United Nations Drug Control Program. With the demise of the puritanical Taliban, one of the world's poorest countries now is expected to regain its standing as the world's leading producer of opium and chief supplier of heroin reaching Europe.Mirakbar, who also uses only one name, can barely suppress his glee at his anticipated windfall. The mud-brick fortress in nearby Ghani Khel - known across the region as the Opium Bazaar - is abuzz as he and some 300 opium merchants ply their trade.Operating in smoky aisles and from wooden-door stalls equipped with little more than a scale and a tidy pile of plastic bags, Mirakbar and the others buy the opium paste from farmers for roughly $90 a pound. In turn, he says, they sell it to brokers for $100. The raw opium is shuttled by truck, mule or taxi into Pakistan, where it is processed into heroin worth billions of dollars to users around the world."There is no other business in Afghanistan but the poppy," says 25-year-old Mirakbar. "The Taliban may have tried to prevent farmers from growing it, but they stockpiled it in warehouses and were involved in trading it. The new government will be, too."For Ashoqullah, the landowner, the logic behind the poppy-growing trade is simple. He says most farmers have families of up to 15 members and cannot support themselves by raising vegetables. With two bags of fertilizer costing $15 each, a farmer growing poppies can earn 120 times what he could cultivating food on the same land, he said.When asked if farmers in a country beset by hunger should reject the lure of poppies, Ashoqullah grows angry, pointing to a mound of harvested vegetables."If you want it, take it and put it in a truck and carry it away," he said. Haji Abdul Jabar, the newly appointed district officer in Ghani Khel, pleads: "There are widows, there are orphans, and there are many poor here. They all need something. Pay them not to grow poppies; pay them to grow something else or construct factories, schools, irrigation systems and roads. That's the only way out of poppies." Note: A lucrative market awakens as growers say bye to Taliban regime. Source: Charlotte Observer (NC)Author: Craig Nelson, Cox News Published: December 26, 2001Copyright: 2001 The Charlotte ObserverContact: opinion charlotteobserver.comWebsite: http://www.charlotte.com/observer/Related Articles:Surge in Afghan Poppy Crop Is Forecast http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11627.shtmlOpium Farmers Return to Their Only Cash Crophttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11427.shtmlTime Running Out in The Opium War http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11425.shtml
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