Editorial: Afghan stability threatened by drug trade

The international community has pinpointed drug production in Afghanistan, which provides more than 85 percent of the world's opium, as one of the greatest threats to the war-scarred country's future. The deputy interior minister in charge of counter-narcotics, General Mohammad Daud, says the international community has been "very slow" to combat Afghanistan's booming trade in opium and heroin, and the Taleban have been forcing farmers to plant poppies to fund the rebel insurgency. He added that his ministry's counter-narcotics efforts last year were successful and hundreds of drug smugglers were detained and tried under a judicial process launched in mid-2005. The drug trade comes at a terrible cost to the country. According to a recent study by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the ministry of counter-narcotics, approximately 170,000 Afghans—roughly 1.4 per cent of the population—now use opium or heroin. About 30,000 of the addicts are women, a shockingly high number in a conservative Muslim society. The toll doesn’t end there. "Afghanistan's main problems are all linked to drug trafficking: rampant corruption, repressive militia groups, human rights abuses and bad governance," said a Western diplomat in Kabul, who agreed to discuss the drug trade only on condition of anonymity.