KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A record-sized drug bust this week came as a rude awakening in a place historically considered a hashish haven.

The 236-tonne, $400-million haul of the illegal cannabis resin came in a province where hashish is discreetly sold at the corner store. Even window-front shops that look like mom-and-pop operations keep a hash stash tucked away in envelopes behind the milk, tea and cooking oil.

Afghani troops break for a "smoke"

The drug is so ubiquitous in Kandahar province that farmers nonchalantly take journalists on tours of their cannabis fields.

He pauses only for a midday nap while working from dawn till dusk to tend to his two-metre-high plants in the countryside near Kandahar City.

He says he recently made $900 in six months.

"I can feed my nine children and wife with this amount very well," Karim said in an interview.

"I know that hashish is dangerous for human beings. But it is gold for the farmers and owners. Do I have any other option?"


A poppy farmer pleads to save his crop - how will he feed his family? Its a fair question and one which the NATO forces which currently occupy Afghanistan need to answer quickly.

The government is encouraging poor rural farmers to find other options. In fact, Canada's signature construction project of a refurbished dam is designed to help build a pomegranate industry in the area.

But farmer Abdul Ahad says hash means cash, earning him more than double the amount he could get by planting wheat or vegetables.

In an interview before this week's record-sized bust near the Pakistani border, he was raving about how safe it was for farmers to grow the drug.

"It saves me from begging and feeds my family very well," Ahad said.

"The Afghan government banned the poppy. And it doesn't bother us while cultivating hashish."

"Even many police munch on it."

Drug eradication is a costly business these days which costs the US and UK governments combined almost £1 Billion per week to undertake and maintain

While it's true that there is international concern about illicit drug use within the fledgling Afghan National Police, Ahad omits a significant detail: hashish is just as illegal in Afghanistan as the opium-producing poppy.

However, it might have been hard to tell until the recent haul.

Government security forces largely ignored cannabis while declaring all-out war on the poppy, which is exponentially more hazardous to human health and far more lucrative to its insurgent enemies.

Poppy fields continue to proliferate in Afghanistan and the drug crop continues to serve as a virtual ATM machine for the pro-Taliban insurgency to pay for things like weapons and fighters' salaries.

The real jewel in Afghanistan's tarnished crown..the poppy, seen here "bleeding" pure opium

Cannabis cultivation has, in the meantime, witnessed a dramatic rise.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says cannabis production has been increasing 66 per cent annually - from 30,000 hectares in 2005 to 70,000 in 2007. Over roughly the same time frame, seizures plummeted 75 per cent - from 81,000 kilos in 2003 to only 22,000 in 2007.

The spike in hash production apparently presented an increased security concern.

When Afghan police found and destroyed a stockpile of hash this week equivalent in weight to 30 of London's double-decker buses, NATO cast the operation in military terms.

They said the drugs, which Afghan police found in trenches, would have netted the insurgency some $14 million.

"With this single find, (Afghan police) have seriously crippled the Taliban's ability to purchase weapons that threaten the safety and security of the Afghan," said NATO Gen. David McKiernan.

While Afghanistan is almost synonymous with the global heroin trade, large amounts of hashish from the country have also been seized abroad.

The gooey, smokable cannabis resin has had a place of prominence in regional lore long before hippies converged on Kabul in the 1960s to smoke its famous hash.

Many believe the word "assassin" dates back over 1,000 years from the term "Hashashin."

It was the name given in the Middle Ages to a religious sect believed by their religious rivals in neighbouring Persia and the Arab world to munch on the drug before conducting targeted killings.

Much Afghani hash or "charas" ends up over the border in Pakistan

Even under the austere reign of the Taliban, the zero-tolerance policy toward the poppy apparently slackened somewhat when it came to hashish.

Kandaharis say it has been a common sight to see people getting high - or "nasha" in the Pashtun language - by smoking the drug they commonly refer to as "chars."

The practice is more concealed in Kandahar City, but in rural areas the men routinely get together for an intoxicating smoke on the front steps of the house.

Shopkeeper Abdul Mateen readily admits that his Kandahar store not only sells staple goods like tea and milk. He also supplies hash from envelopes stored behind the counter.

Here, it costs about one-50th of the going rate in Canada.

"Lots of people come and buy from my shop," he said. "Even police come and buy it here."

The government says there should be no doubt about its stance on cannabis.

"As the poppy is banned here, so is hashish," said provincial counter-narcotics director Gul Muhammad.

"But so many people are cultivating it."

Authorities here employ the same argument used in Canada by opponents of marijuana decriminalization: that it is a gateway to harder drugs. Pot proponents counter that if curious kids are to experiment with a drug, cannabis provides a buffer between them and the more dangerous ones.

Abdul Ahad is addicted to both opium and hashish. Until recently, he smoked an average of 15 joints a day.

Frail and shaking, Ahad urges young people to avoid all drugs. The 35-year-old with the dead-eyed stare is among a dozen people recovering at Kandahar's Waddan rehabilitation centre.

"In the beginning I started smoking hashish and it took me to the poppy extremely easily," he says. He hopes Canadians provide funding for the centre, which is in danger of closing.

"I really feel a difference since being admitted here. I feel healthier and better than before."

http://canadianpress.google.com