*EPF313 10/29/2003
U.N. Report Urges International Aid for Afghan Drug Control
(Opium cultivation continues to grow in world's largest producer, survey finds) (760)

By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent

United Nations -- With opium poppy cultivation increasing during 2003, Afghanistan remains the world's largest source of illicit opium, a new United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) survey reported October 29.

The survey found that in 2003 Afghanistan produced three-quarters of the world's illicit opium, as it did in 2002. The area under opium poppy cultivation increased by 8 percent from 74,000 hectares in 2002 to 80,000, and opium production increased by 6 percent from 3,400 to 3,600 tons, the U.N. report said.

The number of opium farmers increased to 264,000 opium-growing families, representing 7 percent of Afghanistan's population of 24 million. In addition, the report said, there has been "a clear and accelerating extension of opium cultivation to previously unaffected or marginally affected areas" of the country. The number of provinces where opium poppy cultivation was reported has steadily increased from 18 provinces in 1999 to 24 in 2002 to 28 -- out of a total of 32 -- in 2003.

"The country is clearly at a crossroads, either major surgical drug control measures are taken now, or the drug cancer in Afghanistan will keep spreading and metastasize into corruption, violence and terrorism," UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said at a press conference in Moscow releasing the report.

"Traffickers make huge sums of money. It is imperative to confront them with the penalty associated with breaking the law. Terrorists also take a cut from the opium trade. The drug power game poses a threat to peace and security within Afghanistan and beyond its borders," Costa said.

Costa praised the Karzai government's counter-narcotics efforts and ban on opium cultivation and trafficking. But the U.N. drug czar said that neither the fledgling government nor law enforcement can end the drug trade, and he called on the international community to provide the resources needed to help rebuild Afghanistan's economy.

The Afghan government has developed a drug control strategy to take on the formidable task of dismantling the drug economy, the report said. But achieving that requires a complex and well-balanced set of measures that increase the perceived risk of illegal activity and unknot the intricate web of warlords and traffickers while creating a socioeconomic environment that offers rural families the necessities of life and instills a sense of civic responsibility, it said.

"Reaching these goals demands an effort on the part of Afghan society that is unlikely to be sustained unless the international community demonstrates an equal determination to support it," the report said.

In a preface to the report, Costa said that the experience of several countries in Asia and Latin America demonstrates that dismantling a drug economy can be long and complex, lasting a generation or longer.

"This prompts the question: Can Afghanistan with its democratization threatened by old terrorists and new drug barons; neighboring countries affected by drug addiction, and HIV/AIDS pandemic, corruption and violence; and the international community with its 10 million people addicted to Afghan opiates afford to wait that long?" he said

"There is a palpable risk that Afghanistan will again turn into a failed state, this time in the hands of drug cartels and narco-terrorists -- a risk referred to more than once by President (Hamid) Karzai," Costa said in the report.

The survey found that in 2003 the income of Afghan opium farmers and traffickers was about $2.3 billion, a sum equivalent to half the legitimate GDP of the country, the report said. "Out of this drug chest some provincial administrators and military commanders take a considerable share," it noted. "The more they get used to this, the less likely it becomes that they will respect the law, be loyal to Kabul, and support the legal economy."

UNODC said that the 2003 harvest represents an average potential income of about $3,900 per opium-growing family, making the average per capita income $594. In comparison, in 2002 Afghanistan had a per capita GDP of about $184.

The report said that about 10 million people, or two-thirds of opiate abusers in the world, now consume Afghan opiates. Among the most affected countries are Russia and Europe. Heroin injecting is also fueling the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Central Asia, Russia and Eastern Europe.

UNODC estimates that more than half a million people are involved in the illicit opium trade along the trafficking chain from Afghanistan to Europe.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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