{"id":541,"date":"2005-01-25T23:16:30","date_gmt":"2005-01-26T05:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=541"},"modified":"2005-01-25T23:17:17","modified_gmt":"2005-01-26T05:17:17","slug":"is-afghan-poppy-crackdown-working","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=541","title":{"rendered":"Is Afghan Poppy Crackdown Working?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It looks for now like it is, as the President Hamid Karzai’s hardline stance against the drug crop may be having a significant effect<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The top U.N. drug official is heading to Afghanistan to check out reports that farmers are heeding government calls for a “holy war” on the rampant drug trade by slashing opium cultivation.<\/p>\n

Foreign and Afghan officials are forecasting a drop of between 30 percent and 70 percent in this year’s crop, as once verdant expanses of poppies are being sown with wheat instead.<\/p>\n

In eastern Nangarhar province and southern Helmand, poppy production could be down by more than three-quarters this year, the officials said, though reliable statistics are not yet available.<\/p>\n

The reports suggest at least an initial response to President Hamid Karzai’s U.S.-sponsored campaign against the illegal Afghan narcotics industry, which last year supplied an estimated 87 percent of the world’s opium, the raw material for heroin.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Skeptics say drought, disease and falling opium prices \u00e2\u20ac\u201d not Karzai’s eradication program \u00e2\u20ac\u201d are responsible for the drop in cultivation.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The United Nations said that although bad weather and plant disease significantly reduced the opium yield last year, the total output was about 4,200 tons. It valued the trade at $2.8 billion, or more than 60 percent of the country’s 2003 gross domestic product, and warned that Afghanistan was turning into a “narco-state.”<\/p>\n

Under pressure from the United States and Europe, Karzai has called for “jihad,” or holy war, against the drug industry, which is believed to benefit guerrillas, warlords and corrupt officials.<\/p>\n

Foreign diplomats give some of the credit to Mohammed Daoud, a former militia commander and the government’s top anti-narcotics cop. Daoud, a deputy interior minister, summoned provincial police chiefs to Kabul and told them they would be fired if they didn’t halt poppy cultivation.<\/p>\n

Daoud said in an interview he expected cultivation to fall by 50 percent to 70 percent this year.<\/p>\n

A Western official involved in counternarcotics was more cautious, saying the decrease could be 30 percent or more.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even worst case, this is a vast improvement. So what’s the pocketbook hit for Uncle Sam right now?<\/p>\n

The U.S. government is paying thousands of people in Helmand and Nangarhar $3 a day to clean irrigation ditches and repair roads instead of planting poppy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Really, just a pittance. Is it worth it, along with the continued military efforts for stability?<\/p>\n

Farmers in two traditional growing areas of Nangarhar told an AP reporter they stopped planting poppies because they were told to by powerful local landowners and security officials.<\/p>\n

“It was good business, but they said we should stop, and wait and see,” said Abdul Wahid, a bearded sharecropper resting under a stand of mulberry trees next to his fields.<\/p>\n

“If we get help, maybe it’s gone for good. If not, we’ll plant again.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes. Yes. Yes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It looks for now like it is, as the President Hamid Karzai’s hardline stance against the drug crop may be having a significant effect. The top U.N. drug official is heading to Afghanistan to check out reports that farmers are heeding government calls for a “holy war” on the rampant drug trade by slashing opium […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}