Opium Production

Nearly six years after the US invaded Afghanistan, the Taliban is back and opium production is going through the roof. Now, the US government has announced it is ready to let the US military join the Afghan drug war.

A high-level State Department official said last week that the US will shift its opium eradication policy in Afghanistan, but there is less there than meets the eye.

The 2007 Afghan opium poppy crop has set another record, the US ambassador conceded this week. All the more reason to embark on forced eradication, he said.

Opium poppies flourished along the Euphrates River when the Sumerians ruled. Now, amidst civil war and chaos, they are returning to Iraq.

The opium economy is the leading employer in Afghanistan, despite limited eradication efforts funded by the west.

A group of 40 British Members of Parliament is calling on the Blair government to support a trial program that would divert Afghan opium from the black market to the licit medicinal market.

The UN is warning that increases are happening in areas characterized by insurgency.

A stolidly mainstream Canadian defense and foreign affairs think tank has called for the creation of a marketing board to buy and sell Afghan opium. It's part of a report on Canada in Afghanistan that calls for innovative thinking to avoid failure in NATO's mission there.

Casting a wistful eye on Afghanistan's opium bounty, a Kyrgyz lawmaker made a (presumably tongue in cheek) suggestion that his country also allow poppy production. It would help pay off the foreign debt, and it would lead to an increase in foreign aid, he suggested.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is attempting to appease his Western backers by eradicating the country's opium crop, but violence is flaring as a result.