New institutional environment for drug control

Afghanistan’s newly established counter narcotics directorate (CND) said it would make the country drug-free within three seasons. "We are working with UN, UK, US and Afghanistan government to finalise a new anti drug strategy," Mirwais Yasini Director General of CND told IRIN in the Afghan capital Kabul on Thursday. "With consultation of the justice, health, interior and rural rehabilitation ministries a new law on drugs in Afghanistan is underway," Yasini said and maintained that a draft National Drug Control Strategy was elaborated with inputs from concerned ministries and other relevant institutions which would be presented to Cabinet for adoption shortly. CND was established in October 2002 under the Afghan government National Security Council and has become operational since January 2003 with regional offices in Kandahar, Helamand, Nangarhar, Herat and Badakhshan provinces. According to the UN Office on Drugs Control and Crime Prevention, UNODCCP Afghanistan Opium Survey for 2002, 90 percent of poppy cultivation in the country is concentrated in these areas. The directorate announced that the government was in the process of drawing up a plan to strengthen rural livelihoods and to alleviate poverty in all provinces of Afghanistan. "We will prioritise the provinces based on drought, famine and other needs," he said noting that the relevant ministries with the support of the National Security Council, the government of UK and UNODC had organised thematic working groups to prepare implementation plans for each drug control sector. "We are not rewarding anyone for breaching of law," Yasini said calling last years cash compensation strategy an ineffctive plan. He said the new strategy would involve cash-for-work programmes to creat a safety net for the rural population. "There would be no cash compensation," he mentioned, adding that the new strategy would focus on sustainable livelihoods like building roads, schools, water dams and electricity generation stations. He remarked that the poppy eradication programme started very late last year, "Now we are suitably on time to help the farmers for cultivating alternative seeds," he underlined. CND remarked that based on eradication reports from the governors of the main opium poppy areas, so far there had been 7060 ha reduction in the southern provinces, including Helmand, Kandahar and Oruzgan and 3,200 ha in the eastern province of Nangarhar. "There was 30 percent reduction in poppy cultivation last year," Yasini said emphasising there would be a considerable reduction this year. The new Afghan counter drugs directorate declared that a comprehensive joint UNODC/CND opium survey was planned for March 2003. According to UNODCCP, in recent years Afghanistan had been the main source of illicit opium: 70 percent of global illicit opium production in 2000 and up to 90 percent of heroin in European drug markets originated from the country.