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UN coordinator investigating hasheesh fields

In Helmand province, source of at least a quarter of the world's opium, the farmers have been branching out to other drugs in a fit of entrepreneurial development.

 

The UN had zero power to destroy these fields, and their philosophy was simple: destroy them? What on earth for? The farmers need to eat, and they'll just grow the same crops next year - and probably shoot at you for denying their children food. The solution, crop substitution, is only possible with strong governance: which, in 2003, didn't exist.

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Uploaded on February 27, 2005
Taken on July 14, 2002