editorial comment Well, you cannot win all the wars at the same time, can you? In the meantime, thanks for the poppies. Those pesky Taliban were getting all US about it....

By KRISHNADEV CALAMUR WASHINGTON, March 4 : Afghanistan is on the verge of becoming a major narcotics state and could fill the world\'s heroin demand, a U.S. State Department report on drugs released Friday said.

"With an estimated 40 percent to 60 percent of its (gross domestic product) attributed to narcotics, Afghanistan is on the verge of becoming a narcotics state," the annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report said.

Data in the report show that in the three years since the United States toppled Afghanistan's Taliban regime, opium cultivation in the country soared.In 2001, when the country was under Taliban control, 1,685 hectares in the country were used for opium cultivation.The following year, following the regime's toppling, it became 30,750 hectares.It almost doubled in 2003 to 61,000 hectares and set a record, 206,700 hectares, in 2004.

Concurrently potential illicit drug production jumped from 74 metric tons in 2001 to 4,950 metric tons last year.

"Global heroin traffic cannot be reduced unless there are important reductions in Afghan opium poppy cultivation," the report said."Poppy eradication, however, is physically difficult and politically sensitive.

"Rugged terrain, and attacks by remnants of the Taliban regime present daily obstacles to the exercise of central government authority throughout the country."

The report added that Afghanistan alone could satisfy the world's heroin demand and noted that poppy is now the principal source of heroin for the international underworld and could help anti-government groups in the country.

"What you have to do is you have to disincentivize them from violating the law," said Robert Charles, assistant secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement."You have to make sure there is law, and then you have to disincentivize them from violating the law, give the farmers another source of income."

The report noted major successes in anti-trafficking efforts in the Western Hemisphere, primarily Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, which are the major producers of coca, the raw material for cocaine, the No.11 drug threat cited by the report.It noted that multinational crop control and interdiction efforts in the region had paid off, but said Colombia, which cultivates more than 70 percent of the world's coca and refines some 90 percent of cocaine on the world market, dominates the cocaine trade, was pivotal to success in the war on drugs.

"It is obvious that we cannot expect a meaningful reduction in the overall cocaine supply without drastic reductions in Colombia," the report said.

As part of these efforts, the United States funds a multibillion-dollar operation called Plan Colombia that seeks to eradicate the coca crop and those who benefit from it.

Preliminary figures showed that in 2004 U.S.-supported efforts resulted in the spraying of 136,000 hectares of coca, 3,000 hectares more than 2003, amounting to some $50 billion to $60 billion worth of cocaine.

The report did note local resistance in Peru and Bolivia to crop-eradication schemes, including from indigenous groups, which view coca use as part of their tradition.

"As formerly silent indigenous groups have become politically assertive, such appeals to ancient values have gained popular resonance and inspired caution in the governments of both countries," the report said."We can expect to see coca eradication campaigns continue, but at a pace tempered by local political and economic realities."

Charles noted increased cooperation with Mexican authorities on eradicating poppies and marijuana.Mexico also extradited 34 major drug figures to the United States, up from 31 in 2003.

"I think President (Vicente) Fox's leadership has made a difference," he said."I think at the federal level you have reduced corruption, I think you have ...proved that you can really go after some of these people."

The report also noted the fast-growing demand in the United States of synthetic drugs such as amphetamines, noting Canada and Mexico supplied many of the chemicals needed to make them.It also said methamphetamine dominates much of the drug trade in Myanmar, the former Burma, and Thailand and has displaced heroin as the top drug there.

The report also said that marijuana was the most widely used drug in the country and its quality was more potent, dangerous and addictive than the drug used in the 1970s.

The annual report is mandated by Congress.The 2004 report is the 19th.

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