Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[Rick Faurot]

U.N. surveys estimate Afghanistan accounted for three-quarters of the world's opium last year, and the trade brought in $2.3 billion, more than half of the nation's gross domestic product.
New surveys suggest even more has been planted this year. Robert Charles, the State Department's top counternarcotics official, said Afghanistan may be on pace for a world record opium poppy crop this year.

Earlier this week, Rumsfeld said coalition forces are preparing a coordinated effort to attack the narcotics trade in Afghanistan. He offered few specifics but suggested the drug war in Colombia might serve as a partial model.
Yet, cocaine prices on U.S. streets remain unchanged, a sign there is no shortage.

Rumsfeld spoke of the importance of addressing the drug trade.
"It is a very dangerous thing," he said. "To deal with it will require close cooperation..."

The Jalalabad-based counternarcotics unit is in the middle of one of the richest poppy-growing regions in the country. But these units are too small and underequipped to put a major dent in the drug trade.For Afghan farmers, there's no more profitable crop than poppies, the source of opium. For warlords and insurgents, there's no better way to make a lot of money. Most heroin from Afghanistan goes to Europe and Russia.The counternarcotics unit is only conducting interdiction of smuggling, not going after the poppy fields.

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=27501...