The citation for the article did not appear with the paragraph that
was posted - it came from a 2,250 word article by Pete Hamill ("It's
Far From a Land of Milk and Honey") that appeared on p. 34 in the New
York Daily News on September 18, 2001. But Mark is right, Hamill does
not credit Afghanistan for the drop in production during the last
year. (I wonder if Afghan farmers will insist on growing it again in
the next few years.)

 From a Christian Science Monitor article that appeared on page 1 of
the September 20, 2001, by Scott Baldauf ("Life underTaliban cuts two
ways"):

Praised on drug control

 From the Western perspective, the Taliban's most impressive
accomplishment is in the area of drug control. Until last year,
Afghanistan accounted for nearly three-quarters of the world's supply
of opium, with much of the addictive drug reaching Europe, America,
and beyond. Even though the Taliban's interpretation of sharia, or
Islamic law, specifically bans addiction, nearly 500,000 Afghan
farmers earned up to $ 100 million a year from the drought-resistant
crop. Local Taliban governments took a 10 percent cut from a zakat,
or farm tax.

For years, Taliban officials told Western drug-control officials they
couldn't stop poppy cultivation because of the hardship it would
impose on farmers, particularly during a now-three year drought. But
this year, Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar banned opium
outright. To the West's surprise, adherence has been total within
Taliban-ruled areas - and without a penny of foreign aid. The UN Drug
Control Program suspended assistance two years ago.

"It's really quite remarkable," says Bernard Frahi, director of the
UN Drug Control Program in Islamabad, speaking last March, when UN
teams of monitors confirmed that the Taliban poppy ban was total. "If
this had happened in Colombia, where the US is spending billions of
dollars and reducing drug cultivation by maybe 5 percent, this would
have gotten the Nobel Prize. But because it's the Taliban, there's a
different reaction."

 From today's USAToday:

Supporters credit [Mullah Mohammed] Omar for ending the lawlessness
that pervaded Afghanistan and eliminating the opium crop that once
accounted for 75% of the world's harvest. Opium, itself an addictive
substance, is used to make morphine, heroin and other drugs. Omar
ruled in 2000 that opium is "un-Islamic" and forced farmers to plant
wheat and other, less lucrative crops.

Jack Kelley, "U.S. takes on war-hardened Taliban it helped create
Afghan troops are ill-equipped but ready 'to kill the infidels'" USA
TODAY  (September 21, 2001), 1A.

Jon

>I wonder if the recent posting of the large production of opium in
>Afghanistan is outdated.
>
>         The U.S. recently gave the country several millions of dollars to
>reward the country for its virtual elimination of opium production.
>
>                                                 Mark Haller
>                                                 Temple University


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