London conference neglects Afghanistan's opium problem

[Kshasty]

Like every other Afghanistan conference, the sixth conference in London on January 28 did not discuss the country's opium problem.

However, refusing to discuss Afghanistan's opium problem is like discussing reconciliation in Colombia without touching on the cocaine trade which has sustained rebels for a long time.

The United States and Britain do not like to discuss heroin at international conferences, and they do not like it when Russia tries to convince them to launch major anti-drug projects in Afghanistan and adjacent regions. Russia is pursuing this mostly because the Afghan connection has become a strategic threat to Russia, as the Central Asian countries' borders with Afghanistan are completely unprotected.

The Western stance on the issue could be justified, because the struggle against drugs calls for a delicate touch and perfect organization, and is better waged silently. Nobody can contest this truth. On the other hand, there is one more reason for the unwillingness to consider Afghanistan's drug problem.

Not much has been done to cleanse it of drugs in the eight years since the deployment of the coalition troops in the country. In fact, progress in the matter is strange, with one step forward and two steps back or even sideways.

All drug experts, including those focused on Afghanistan, claim that the goals of settlement and reintegration cannot be achieved even if the country had an ideal government consisting of perfectly honest people. They say that the situation has gone too far for that, that drugs have become an inalienable part of life in Afghanistan, a disease that cannot be treated by therapeutic methods.

To better understand the problem, it should be divided into several elements - poppy cultivation (fields sown with opium poppy), opium (initial processing) and heroin (the end product). But even these statistical breakdowns will not be entirely accurate, with an estimated error of 10%-20%. It is impossible to accurately measure the area sown with opium poppy in Afghanistan, or the opium and heroin output.

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20100129/157716955.html