One Success Story On The War Against Heroin

Keeping it up: To grow other crops, people need aid for a dam and irrigation, agrees tribal elder Mohammad Amin. Mark Sappenfield/The Christian science Monitor

Fragile Success Against Afghanistan's Opium Economy -- Christian Science Monitor

Poppy cultivation fell by about 20 percent, after two years of record harvests.

Ghani Khel, Afghanistan - A year ago, the province that surrounds this dusty town of onion farmers was Afghanistan's No. 2 producer of opium. Today, Nangarhar has eradicated opium entirely.

It is the most dramatic reversal in a year offering the first hints of progress against opium, with harvests declining nationwide.

Yet in the chalk-white fields above Ghani Khel, tribal elder Pat Zirak Mohammad predicts that Nangarhar's opium ban will not last. To grow anything other than poppy, his people need a dam to harness water from seasonal floods. But he is skeptical that the government will deliver. "If that doesn't happen, our people will again grow poppy," he says.

Through its bold attempts to ban poppy in recent years, Nangarhar has become the preeminent case study on how to wean Afghanistan from its poppy crop. Mr. Mohammad's words point to the difficulty of making success last.

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My Comment: For the present .... there is at least some hope in one part of Afghanistan.