| Submit your comments on this article |
| Afghanistan |
| Afghan provinces get millions to reduce poppies |
| 2009-11-24 |
| The U.S. on Monday agreed to hand out millions of dollars in development aid to provinces in Afghanistan that have eliminated or reduced the production of opium poppies, the raw ingredient in making heroin. The poppy crop in Afghanistan, which produces 90 percent of the world's supply of opium, is linked to corruption, addiction and a drug trade that bankrolls the Taliban insurgency. Curbing the cultivation of poppies is the goal of a U.S. program that has doled out $80 million (54 million euros) since 2007. That includes the $38.7 million (26 million euros) the U.S. announced it is giving to 27 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces that either reduced poppy cultivation by more than 10 percent or became poppy-free this year. In a separate program, the U.S. has opened 16 drug treatment clinics around the nation, and another 11 are expected in the next few months. Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold where U.S. and British troops launched major operations this summer, will receive $10 million — the maximum allowed under the program — for reducing poppy cultivation by 33 percent, said Gen. Khodaidad, Afghan minister of counternarcotics, who goes by only one name. Three provinces — Baghlan, Faryab and Kapisa — will get $1 million each for becoming poppy-free for the first time, he said. Almost all of Afghanistan's opium is grown in Helmand and six other provinces — all areas under partial or total Taliban control. While the Obama White House has all but abandoned the Bush administration's program of destroying poppy crops, the Afghan government continues to support poppy crop eradication efforts. Critics said razing poppy fields angered and impoverished rural Afghans without making a significant dent in harvests. U.S. and NATO troops began actively targeting drug warehouses for the first time this year. The U.N. reported that in the first half of this year, military operations destroyed 50 tons of opium, 7 tons of morphine, 1.5 tons of heroin, and 27 laboratories for turning opium into heroin. |
| Posted by:ed |
| #3 development AID. I would bet not $1 has went too develop anything but another poppy field there. |
| Posted by: chris 2009-11-24 20:58 |
| #2 If they don't actually kill the poppies, at least they will slash them with knives and make them bleed. |
| Posted by: Grunter 2009-11-24 18:48 |
| #1 I've seen this movie. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2009-11-24 15:10 |