CHANGING THE FOCUS

AT THIS TIME of year, farmers in Afghanistan are preparing to harvest
another crop of the bright flowers containing opium resin from which heroin
is made. This was supposed to be the first year the United States would
curtail Afghanistan's habit of producing three-fourths of the world's opium
supply.

That was supposed to be easy. After all the U.S. military forces vanquished
the Taliban regime, which had tacitly encouraged poppy farming. But the
Taliban turned out to be only part of the problem. The opium that
Afghanistan is producing comes from territory controlled by the U.S.-backed
Northern Alliance.

In Kandahar's bustling opium market, U.S. drug policy objectives clash with
cultural and economic reality. To the merchants at the market, peddling
opium isn't an illicit activity; it's gainful employment.

"All the country is in this business," an opium merchant at the market told
an Associated Press reporter. "I must support my family, but how?"

That's the question the Bush administration has yet to answer, blinded it
seems by a decades-old policy that emphasizes interdiction at the expense
of other forces that fuel drug problems. First, there's the
bread-and-butter supply problem caused by farmers and merchants who view
opium and coca, heroin and cocaine in the same way they look upon cotton
and clothing -- raw material and finished goods that help them feed their
families.

Second, there's the huge markup of prices once the drugs leave Afghanistan
and end up in the hands of cartels. Third, there's the demand problem,
fueled by otherwise law-abiding Western consumers, such as the 10 people
who graduated last week from drug court in St. Louis County. The 10
included a law student, a mother and business school student.

Of these three problems, the Bush administration's anti-drug initiatives in
the next fiscal year place the most emphasis on the cartel-interdiction
component. The proposal calls for $19.2 billion, 6 percent more for
treatment and 10 percent more for interdiction. A wiser approach would be
to fund all three problems, but de-emphasize interdiction.

Instead, the United States should expand the drug court system to give more
users a second chance and give them treatment and counseling to keep them
drug free. And the U.S. should encourage Afghan and Andean farmers to
harvest legal crops and open up European and United States markets to their
products.

With a drop in the demand for drugs and less need to invest in
interdiction, there would be money aplenty to aid poor opium and coca
farmers and rescue those afflicted by the drug scourge.