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Presented by Senator Pierre Claude Nolin,
Canada
Dear friends, first of all I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the Senlis Council for inviting me to this important symposium.
I am pleased to be with you today so we may discuss a public policy that could not only improve the future outlook for the Afghan people, but also contribute to global geopolitical stability, as well to relieve the pain in Third world countries.
In 2004, sixty delegations and diplomatic leaders from twenty countries met in Berlin to assess the progress made in rebuilding the public institutions of Afghanistan and fighting poppy cultivation.
At that time, President Hamid Karzaï stated that his country had a duty to fight drugs but that the problem was too large for his country to tackle alone.
The international community heard this message clearly: more than $500 millions will be invested in 2005-2006 in the eradication of poppy cultivation and to promote legal agricultural activities.
In addition to this initiative, other international measures to support Afghanistan have been taken under the aegis of the United Nations.
The most important of these is the Paris Pact, which was adopted in 2003 by over fifty countries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
While this initiative was presented as a means to strengthen Afghanistan’s administrative structure, it is designed first and foremost to stem the considerable flow of opium into Europe through Eurasia.
Unfortunately, this will be a lengthy struggle not unlike a “jihad”, and there is a risk that it could be viewed as a spectacular failure in the war against drugs.
A preliminary report on opium production in Afghanistan published on August 29, 2005, by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, indicates that 87% of the illegal production in the world can be traced to this country.
This illegal economic activity accounted for over half of the country’s gross domestic product for 2004-2005.
It is estimated that 309,000 families – the equivalent of two millions persons, constituting 8.7% of the total population of Afghanistan – derived a large part of their income from it.
The report also indicates that the surface area where opium is produced dropped from 131,000 hectares in 2004 to less than 103,000 in 2005, a 21% decrease.
In spite of this progress, Afghanistan’s very favourable climatic conditions of last year have meant that opium production has dropped by only 2.4% – from 4,200 to 4,100 tons – over the same period.
Moreover, the noted decrease in the hectares used for poppy cultivation is not equally distributed throughout the country.
Although the number of hectares used for opium production has decreased significantly in the three main producing provinces of Hilmand, Nangarhar and Badakhshan, it has increased dramatically in the provinces of Kandahar (+ 162 %), Balk (+ 334 %), Farah (+ 348 %) and Nimroz (+ 1 370 %).
The United Nations acknowledges in its report that dismantling an underground economy based on the massive production of opium by establishing the rule of law, democracy and rural development is a highly complex process involving all levels of civil and political society.
In its 2004 annual report, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) shares this point of view.
According to the INCB, this threatens the country’s reconstruction efforts and the attainment of the UN’s aforementioned objectives.
Can the international community afford to fail in Afghanistan? The answer is no.
Let us not forget the spectacular failure of the United States’ efforts to eradicate cocaine production in South America, at a cost of billions of dollars and thousands of human lives.
This policy contributed to socio-political destabilization, the weakening of public institutions and the growth of corruption and crime in countries such as Columbia, rather than reducing the supply of cocaine to North America and improving living conditions for farmers.
Considering Afghanistan’s geopolitical situation and international trade laws;
Considering the weak political institutions in most of the country;
Considering the geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and the terrorist threat; and
Above all, the longstanding and terrible suffering of the Afghan people, the international community does certainly not want to see another Columbia in Central Asia.
In this sense, we must act pragmatically in order to support the Afghan authorities in their struggle against illegal opium production and the endemic corruption and crime it engenders at all levels of society.
I certainly agree with UN and INCB officials that any efforts to prohibit opium production will be ineffective until the rule of law has been firmly established throughout Afghanistan in order to ensure that everyone is equal before the law and to guarantee freedom of expression, religion and association.
I would add, however, that even when the rule of law is supported by strong and independent public and judicial institutions, the significant failures of the Western policies that prohibited illicit drugs for over a century will inexorably come to bear in Afghanistan.
In this sense, the West has nothing to teach the Afghan people.
In Canada, the 2002 report of the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs, which I had the honour of chairing, clearly demonstrated that laws prohibiting the production and use of cannabis for both therapeutic and recreational purposes, which are prevalent throughout the West, are applied in a highly discriminatory manner and no longer enjoy the public authority they once did.
In order to counter this rather embarrassing if not absurd situation, Canada, like a number of European countries, is struggling to decriminalize the use and production of small amounts of cannabis, while regulating these activities for medical purposes.
The goal of this approach is simple, although hypocritical.
The rule of law must be restored at all costs, while effectively countering certain provisions of the three international conventions regulating illegal psychoactive substances and reducing the negative social and legal effects of the prohibition of cannabis.
The same can be said with respect to the use of prohibition for other illegal psychoactive substances such as opiates.
In this regard, I was pleased to learn that the Senlis Council is proposing a pragmatic, intelligent and refreshing approach to address the illegal production of opium.
As you know, the Senate of Canada recommended legalizing cannabis as part of a detailed regulatory framework that is similar in a number of respects to that proposed by the Council.
Contrary to what some individuals have indicated, this must be done once a series of administrative reforms, intelligent public education campaigns and rigorous epidemiological and scientific studies have been completed.
Adopting such a public policy in Afghanistan would kill two birds with one stone.
First, it would eliminate the negative effects of illegal opium production while also taking into account the inherent features of Afghan society.
Secondly, it would put an end to the international shortage of opiates used for medical purposes, which was reported by the INCB, earlier this year, at the 58th General Assembly of the World Health Organization.
It is worth mentioning that, surprisingly, the binding dispositions of international conventions, besides their well known failure to eradicate illegal production of opium, are causing an unacceptable shortage of drugs to relieve pain of millions of suffering people especially in Third World countries.
That being said, any proposals involving the regulation, production and trade of opium in Afghanistan will be part of a very lengthy process.
It will unfold gradually given the fragility of the rule of law and of democracy in the country.
Moreover, as with the implementation of the regime put forward by the Senate of Canada Committee, international conventions, especially the Single Convention on Drugs of 1961, will probably have to be amended to allow for the legal production of opium.
I acknowledge that the Single Convention on Drugs of 1961 could allow Afghanistan to produce and export opium used for scientific or therapeutic purposes.
But, if we take into account geo-strategic factors and the fact that the international regime for the control of psychoactive substances, beyond any moral or even racist roots it may initially have had, is first and foremost a system that reflects the geopolitics and economics of North-South relations in the 20th century, there may be no other option for this country than the one proposed by the Canadian Senate Committee.
Impossible task you might say? I don’t think so.
I would like to conclude on a positive note.
The approach proposed by the Senlis Council must be part of the current review of the international conventions that have governed illegal drugs since 1909.
In 1998, UN member countries agreed at a special meeting to eradicate or at least significantly reduce the production of cannabis, coca and opium and the demand for these substances by 2008.
We now see in 2005 that we are far from that objective and a number of governments are feeling growing pressure from their respective citizens for the international community to put at end to the suffering engendered by the war on drugs.
Prohibition, a grandfather that will be one hundred years old in 2009, is on its last legs.
The international conventions are outdated and ineffective.
After the arrival of the coalition forces in Afghanistan, the international community made a commitment to restore freedom, human dignity and peace to the country.
As I said earlier, there is a possibility that the war on opium could have the opposite effect.
Today we must send a clear message to the world’s leaders regarding the historic opportunity in 2008.
The Afghan people are counting on us.
Thank you.
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