Government charts progress in tackling opium

Afghanistan has embarked on a concerted campaign to tackle its booming narcotics trade, the counter narcotics minister, Habibullah Qaderi announced, following an event that included the burning of 30 mt of refined and raw opium on the outskirts of the capital, Kabul, on Sunday. The move marked the United Nations international day against drug abuse and illicit trafficking. Afghanistan produced 4,600 mt of opium in 2004, accounting for 86 percent of the total world supply of the highly addictive drug. According to the ministry of interior, Sunday’s ritual incineration of drugs seized in recent months was the largest ever. The previous record,13.8 mt of cocaine was burned in Colombia only last month. Afghan officials say their 'get tough' policy is bearing fruit and that they are seizing ever-increasing amounts of drugs. Up to 50 drug traffickers are currently being tried in Afghan courts. Qaderi said the country was beginning to turn the tide against drugs and hoped for a 30 percent reduction in poppy cultivation this year. "The poppy crop in 2004 was the largest ever because everybody thought they could grow poppy with impunity but we have already turned the corner, as a survey of this year's crop showed in February," Qaderi said. The survey, carried out jointly by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Ministry of Counter Narcotics, indicated that the amount of land under poppy cultivation had decreased in comparison with 2004 in all but five of the country's 34 provinces. Despite this progress, although the amount of land under opium production is set to drop in 2005, the nation's per-hectare productivity of the deadly crop has risen. The head of UNODC, Antonio Mario Costa, said that despite the reduction in cultivation and the eradication of poppy fields, production was likely to still be significant this year. This was partly due to a wetter winter after several years of drought in Afghanistan. Kabul is under increasing international pressure to reduce production in the continuing battle against heroin production, most of which ends up on the streets of Europe and the US. During a recent trip to the US, Afghan president Hamid Karzai was criticised by officials for the lack of progress in tackling the drugs menace. Karzai rejected the criticism, blaming Western countries for their lack of support for initiatives to offer alternative livelihoods in rural areas and enhance national capacity to track and prosecute the growers and traffickers.