Pubdate: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Copyright: 2005 San Jose Mercury News Contact: http://www.mercurynews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin) Afghanistan Opium-Farm Licensing Under Consideration The world's biggest producer of opium and its derivative, heroin, acknowledged Monday that it has considered licensing its vast illicit crop and using it to produce opium-based medicines, though it ruled out such a move in the immediate future. The Afghan government said it welcomed the release Monday of a feasibility study about the subject by a European-based drug policy research organization, the Senlis Council. But Afghanistan's counternarcotics minister, Habibullah Qaderi, ruled out adopting such a program until security conditions in the country improve. - --- MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman