Doctors back licensing opium trade
Pastor Dale Morgan
Doctors back licensing opium trade*
From correspondents in London
January 24, 2007 05:08am
Article from: Reuters
BRITISH doctors said today that opium grown in Afghanistan could be used
legally to deal with a chronic shortage of pain killers.
The British Medical Association, which represents Britain's doctors,
added its voice to those of critics of Western anti-narcotics policy in
Afghanistan, which produces 90 per cent of the world's illegal opium
despite efforts to stamp it out.
The BMA said the opiate-based drug diamorphine could be produced legally
from Afghan poppies, helping to solve a supply crisis in Britain, where
it is used to relieve pain.
Afghanistan's pro-Western government opposes any cultivation and favours
destroying the crops, although only after farmers have access to other
livelihoods. Britain is the lead Western donor nation supporting
Afghanistan's anti-drugs policy.
"While we have such a dramatic shortage of diamorphine, it does seem
that, as the crop is there, rather than destroy it let's at least
harvest it and use it medically," Dr Vivienne Nathanson, the BMA's head
of science and ethics, told BBC radio.
Dr Nathanson said the shortage stemmed from a global move, led by the
United States, to avoid diamorphine, although medics in Britain and
other European countries favoured it to other pain killers.
However Britain's Department of Health said the shortage was due to
limited production and not a lack of the raw product. It said supply
should improve in 2007.
The Foreign Office said the idea had been considered in the past by the
Afghan government and rejected.
"Illicit cultivation is not the way forward," a spokesman said.
Officials say last year saw a record harvest for opium production in
Afghanistan as efforts to combat the drugs trade showed little signs of
success.
Much of Afghanistan's illegal opium comes from the southern Helmand
province where British troops are fighting a revival of the Taliban-led
insurgency as part of a NATO force.
Almost 50 British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since the
Taliban government was toppled in 2001, most during a recent upsurge in
violence.
Afghanistan's Western allies say the drugs industry fuels the Taliban,
but acknowledge it also provides livelihoods for millions of Afghans.