-Caveat Lector- From http://www.guardian.co.uk/drugs/Story/0,2763,653590,00.html
}}}>Begin MI5 fears flood of Afghan heroin MI5 fears flood of heroin Nick Hopkins and Richard Norton Taylor Thursday February 21, 2002 The Guardian Police and intelligence agencies have been warned that Britain is facing a potentially huge increase in heroin trafficking because of massive and unchecked replanting of the opium crop in Afghanistan, the Guardian has learned. The expectation is that the 2002 crop will be equivalent to the bumper one of three years ago, which yielded 4,600 tonnes of raw opium. Deep concern within law enforcement circles, particularly MI5, MI6 and customs, has been reinforced by the latest assessment of the UN office for drug control and crime prevention, based in Vienna. Its field workers have just finished a study in Afghanistan and early analysis of their work has revealed that "substantial regrowing has taken place in several provinces". A full report will be published next Wednesday. The UN spokesman Kemal Kurspahic warned yesterday that unless there was urgent action to stop the crop being harvested at the end of March, then the "best ever opportunity" to suffocate the illegal trade would be lost. Afghanistan is the source of 75% of the world's heroin and 90% of Britain's supply. A ban on poppy growing in Afghanistan introduced by the Taliban in July 2000, coupled with severe droughts last year, reduced the country's opium yield by 91% in 2001, but this had negligible effect on the market in Europ e because traders had significant stockpiles along their traditional supply routes. The UN estimates that these stockpiles will be exhausted by the end of this year. Mr Kurspahic, who works for the UN office, said the organisation was in a race against time to stop the fresh harvest restoring the traffickers' supply. "If we don't stop the flow of drugs then everything else will have been in vain," he said. "If there was no new production in Afghanistan this year then shortages in Europe would be felt by the end of the year. We don't have much time _ we have a window of opportunity. Sustaining the ban would present the most promising ever development in drug control." Even though Afghanistan's interim government, led by Hamid Karzai, introduced an extensive ban on poppy growing last month, the dearth of law enforcement outside the capital, Kabul, has rendered it meaningless. "Post-war Afghanistan does not have a functioning law enforcement capacity," Mr Kurspahic said. "We have to set up a law enforcement and drug control mechanism as soon as we can. We cannot do much in the aid sector until we have security." One Whitehall official said yesterday that "enormous pressure" was be ing put on Mr Karzai's government by the UN and western governments, but that the situation was "immensely complicated in the current political situation" because of fears that the issue could destabilise the fragile administration. "It is a political nightmare which could undermine the whole peace process," a western intelligence source said. Though poppies are grown throughout the country - including areas controlled by the Northern Alliance - they are cultivated mainly in the Pashtun-dominated south and east Afghanistan. "Isolate the Pashtuns and you may dissuade them from backing the administration," the source said. One possible solution is for European governments to buy the poppy crop, but this would be highly controversial as well as costly. There is also recognition that providing aid and substitute crops to poor farmers would not necessarily solve the problem because any attempt to control the trade would be resisted by local warlords. Assessments of the replanting were difficult while the US bombing campaign was at its height, but recent analyses by the British security services and customs have sent shockwaves through the law enforcement community. "The replanting in Afghanistan is of sufficient order that it could produce a second bumper crop, similar to the 1998-99 harvest," an intelligence source confirmed. 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