Pubdate: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 Source: Guardian, The (UK) Section: Lead Editorial Copyright: 2007 Guardian Newspapers Limited Contact: http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175 Cited: http://www.senliscouncil.org/modules/Opium_licensing Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Afghanistan Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Senlis (Senlis Council) THE DRUGS DON'T WORK The deaths of three British soldiers at the end of last week have brought the total number of British soldiers killed in combat in Afghanistan since 2001 to 50. The struggle to rebuild the economy at the same time as protecting the peace is making Afghanistan, for the military, as dangerous as Iraq. It would be facile to suggest that there is an easy route out of the opposition the Nato forces are encountering. But destroying the Afghan poppy crop - now the main livelihood of whole communities - while trying to win the hearts and minds of the people appears to be increasingly incompatible with the real purpose of the mission of permanently defeating the Taliban. Not for the first time, a "war on drugs" has done much harm. In Afghanistan, where economic chaos and the collapse of the cotton market followed the eviction of the Taliban from Kabul, farmers found poppy-growing the surest way of making a living. Something approaching half of the whole Afghan economy is now attributed to the opium trade, while the country is the source of 90% of the world's production, and of most of the opium that finds its way on to British streets. Of course the war on drugs recognises that farmers need an alternative, but the laws of the free market operating in an environment of static demand and diminishing supply make it more or less impossible to compete with the rising price of opium. British soldiers are now focused more on disrupting the drug runners' routes than applying industrial-strength weedkiller to the poppy crop. But with the start of the new growing season in October, the destruction of the crop will continue. Meanwhile, from past experience, supply - this being a global business - will simply relocate. There is an alternative. It is pioneered by the Senlis Council, a counter-narcotics thinktank, which launches a new campaign this month to win support for the licensing of the poppy crop and the legal manufacture of morphine. It proposes village-level production to make a "fair trade" version of the drug that would at last put the pain relief the west takes for granted within reach of doctors and patients in the developing world. At the same time it would provide local jobs and a boost to local economies. The Senlis Council has the funding for a pilot project. It is ready to go. The official line is that there is insufficient stability for it to work in Afghanistan. But the thinktank believes it is garnering support. A licensing scheme for opium production in Turkey has worked for 30 years. A trial in Afghanistan could test its potential. But it would need a change of tone from America, whose commitment to the war on drugs looks more and more like a dangerous rhetorical flourish that British troops can ill afford. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake