Not what the doctor ordered

摘要

An atmosphere of despair prevails in the village of Shinwari, close to Nangahar province's border with Pakistan. This year's internationally-funded $860m blitz on Afghanistan's opium industry produced a 96% drop in the poppy hectarage in the province, the best result amid a 21% overall reduction nationwide. But farmers in Shinwari say that along with the poppy went 60-90% of Nanga-har's rural economy, a void not being filled by promised "alternative livelihood" schemes, which will take years and billions of dollars to take root. There is no real alternative to poppy yet, the farmers claim. No alternative? What, then, to make of a study by the French-based Senlis Council, which bravely proposes to introduce licensed opium production in Afghanistan for pharmaceutical painkillers? Senlis thinks this could be a panacea for a country that has in recent years depended on opium for about half of its GNP.