U.N. REPORTS SOME REDUCTION IN AFGHANISTAN'S OPIUM OUTPUT

UNITED NATIONS - Afghanistan made some progress in cutting back opium
poppy cultivation in the past year but is still in danger of becoming
a "narco-state," the director of an annual United Nations survey said
Wednesday.

Afghanistan produces 87 percent of the world's opium, and the income
from production and trafficking in 2005 was estimated at $2.7
billion, equivalent to 52 percent of Afghanistan's legal gross
domestic product.

The report said eradication and the development of alternative uses
for the land of farmers who abandoned growing poppies had cut
cultivation acreage by 21 percent, but overall production declined
only 2 percent because favorable weather had increased yields.

In concrete terms, the report said, 50,000 heads of household made a
decision not to plant their fields with opium poppy, and one field
out of five planted with an illicit crop in 2004 was planted with a
legal crop in 2005.

Antonio Maria Costa, director of the United Nations Office of Drugs
and Crime, said that despite advances, "the future doesn't look so good."

"The threat is definitely there that the country will become a
narco-state," he said in an interview. "We need a stronger commitment
to eradication and stronger support for farmers so that not only are
they won over to the reality that law enforcement works, but that the
alternative for them is not humanitarian disaster but jobs and income."

According to the report, most of the profits go to a very few
traffickers, warlords and militia leaders rather than to the farmers,
who are often heavily in debt to the warlords.

Last year, Mr. Costa said, the survey found that the principal reason
farmers cited for giving up poppy cultivation was that it against the
teachings of Islam. This year, the principal reasons given were fear
of eradication and hope for aid.

He said, though, that cultivation went down only in those few areas
where development assistance was available, and he feared the
eradication effort was faltering.

New pledges from President Hamid Karzai to wipe out the illegal
business are difficult to fulfill because of deteriorating security
and the reality that many of his provincial governors and police and
army officers profit from the trade, Mr. Costa said. According to the
report, up to 25 percent of the newly elected members of Parliament
were "involved in drugs."

"Before, Karzai would move around corrupt officials," Mr. Costa said.
"Now he has to remove them."