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Quick Hits (page 4)

The Taliban Is Gone, But Local Interests Keep the Afghan Drug Trade Alive

By: Andrew Chang

Afghanistan's vaunted heroin trade is back - trade is back - and many of its proceeds are going to likely terror supporters as well as members of the incumbent government.

This month, the United Nations' Office of Drug Control Policy said in a report that preliminary surveys had confirmed "a major resurgence" of opium poppy cultivation in the Central Asian country.

"It could be considerably high and considerably serious," said UNODCP spokesman Kemal Kurspahic. "We can assume that Afghanistan will resume its No. 1 spot at the production table."

Afghanistan is at the center of what's known as the Golden Crescent - a Central Asian version of Southeast Asia's infamous drug-supplying Golden Triangle.

For years, it was the world's largest producer of the opium poppy, the raw material for heroin. However, the country's notoriety exploded in the late 1990s, when the ruling Taliban regime levied taxes on the illicit harvest: a 10 percent tax on all production and 20 percent tax on trade. Some reports said authorities even issued receipts.

According to DEA estimates, Afghanistan shipped at least 2,000 metric tons of heroin in 2001. With heroin selling for prices ranging from $50 per kilo to $600 per kilo, that's at least $100 million or as much as $1.2 billion.

It was hoped that the ouster of the fundamentalist Islamic regime would end this illicit trade.

On the contrary, little has changed aside from the fact that Taliban tax collectors are no longer around. Those profiting from Afghanistan's post-Taliban heroin market are the same ones that profited during the Taliban reign.

Those that are making money are, in the words of Afghanistan expert Barnett Rubin, "the same as they always were."

Keeping Quiet: A Good Business Decision

Haji Bashir was once a major Taliban money supplier and leading drug kingpin of southern Afghanistan.

Today, Bashir has dropped all ties to the former regime and become a "fine, upstanding citizen," said Rubin, director of New York University's Center on International Cooperation. But when asked if he thought Bashir was still involved in the drug trade, Rubin replied "probably."

According to Thomas Gouttierre, director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska, Bashir is in fact still exhorting farmers to grow opium poppies. But to keep up ties with his former fundamentalist backer, Rubin said - "that would no longer be a sound business decision."

It is possible more obvious elements of al Qaeda and Taliban could also be profiting from the heroin trade as well, experts said. Many of the routes used by traffickers to move heroin out of Afghanistan run through Pakistan's tribal belt, a porous border area suspected to be a refuge for bin Laden if he is still alive.

In May of this year, international financial crime expert Jack Blum told a House panel on corruption he believes powers in that region have taken a cut of that trade.

"An awful lot of the insanity that was going on in Kashmir was financed out of that heroin flow, because the Pakistani secret service was involved in helping support the flow," said Blum, a Washington lawyer and former investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

And despite promises of cooperation from Pakistan's leaders and efforts to allow the pursuit of drug traffickers across borders, Blum said he expected the elements in that area, which have been linked to terror, to continue to profit from the heroin trade.

"The problem of the corruption surrounding drugs on that route is absolutely astonishing. I have no faith at all that any agreement to chase or not to chase would make any difference," he said.

Into the Pockets of Allies

The flow of profits from the heroin trade are not only going to possible terrorists, but American allies as well. Post-Taliban Afghanistan's drug woes hit the international stage with a vengeance this July, with the assassination of Vice President Haji Abdul Qadir.

Days after the incident, President Bush was asked who he thought might have been involved — and he raised the possibility that drug lords might have been responsible. Qadir's killers have not been caught.

Qadir, one of the country's richest men, was reported to be a drug baron himself. His traditional power base was Jalalabad, a city in eastern Afghanistan that is ringed with vast fields of opium poppies, and has prospered from its proximity to the Pakistani border.

Earlier this year, Qadir's troops raided Ghani Khiel, the country's largest opium market. But there were rumors that Qadir's men burned only a fraction of what they seized, and sold the rest.

The governor of Kandahar province, Gul Agha, who has reportedly received CIA money, and made a number of very public drug interdiction efforts, is also said to have drug ties.

During a previous term as governor from 1992-1994, his tenure was marked by corruption. In January, he reportedly lobbied the U.S. military to release Bashir himself.

"The revenue from this poppy is an essential element of the ability of the warlords who are supporting us in going after the Taliban," Blum said in his testimony.

Without heroin, any Afghan administration would be hard-pressed to provide for its people, he said. "We are in the dilemma of what do you do? Do you try to wipe out their crop and leave them broke and then pay them money? Or do you let them grow the poppy and export the poppy?"

Country Still in Chaos

Given the tangle of interests that surround Afghanistan's drug problem, few experts thought more eradication efforts and law enforcement efforts would do it alone.

One of the major problems, explained DEA official Tom Hinojosa, is that the country is still in chaos. "There's a war going on there. The eradication they've done there are in those regions they are able to get to," he said.

The Afghan government has mainly been in charge of eradication efforts, with some advisory assistance from Britain.

Dealing with the drug problem will also entail developing alternatives for Afghan farmers, like artichokes, avocados, cut flowers, and lavender - and then finding markets for them.

The problem is not that simple though. Roads and irrigation systems will also have to be established, experts said. Opium poppies turned out to be an ideal crop for drought-stricken, war-torn Afghanistan because they consumed little water, and produced a highly valuable, easily transportable commodity.

The problem that faces the Afghan government is "more of a market adjustment than a policy objective," said Gouttierre.

According to a report from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization released in August, profits at the farm level from the 2002 opium poppy harvest could be worth more than $1 billion.

That's almost 5 percent of the country's GDP - an equivalent proportion produced in the United States by home building and related industries.

"This is possibly one of the most complicated, atrocious problems that anyone could ever imagine," Blum said.

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Tan 'n' Trends

Growin' Our Own (page 4)

$10.00 Train Ride to Mazatlan, Mexico

By: Travelin'

It was going to be Easter vacation from High School and my buddy Rocky and I wanted to take a cheap vacation. I contacted a travel agent to purchase a train ticket to Mazatlan. Days later I had my quote of $9.75 for a one way ticket. I couldn't believe that over 1,000 miles on a Mexican train would cost less than $10.00 so I ordered our tickets. We drove to Calexico in Rocky's new VW bug which we parked in the U.S. and took a cab across the Mexican border to the Mexicali train station. We were with another guy, a connected Mexican National, whose father was on the Mexico Supreme Court. He had a pink colored Mexican Diplomatic passport. Traveling with him we felt like we had immunity too. We got to the train station and were boarded onto the Ferrocarril Del Pacifico for our train ride.

The train looked like something out of an old Jesse James movie with wooden frame push up windows, and it was just an old Pullman train. People had chickens, baby pigs, cardboard boxes wrapped with twine - it was a poor crowd. The train departed and we traveled through the desert for about a thousand miles until we got near the coast at Guymas. It took the train about 20 hours to get to Mazatlan. On the rail we were stopped by the Federales, the very serious green uniformed Army guys with machine guns. They searched everybody riding in our car. A guy across from us held a large cardboard box and was ordered to untie it so the Federales could look inside. The Fererales discovered that he had a small TV set, and for a $5.00 fine (or bribe) he was able to keep it. Later he said he could sell the TV for 3 times what he had paid in the states. At about 9 p.m. a conductor came through and checked our tickets. He took ours and wrote MTZ on a small paper which he punched. I asked for my official ticket back and he acted like he didn't understand English. Surprisingly, his paper note got us all the way to Mazatlan. We made many stops along the way. One time we stopped in the middle of the desert and a guy got into our car and blew out a candle. I thought what a way to stop a train. The conductor kept coming through with a galvanized wash tub with iced beer [cerveza] which I always looked forward to drinking. Finally about midnight he came by with pillows. He said it would cost 6 pesos to rent a pillow. I rented my pillow, laid it on the window sill and struggled to find a comfortable position to fall asleep. My neck hurt for days after that ride. At Guymas vendors with and without carts came up to the windows of our train car and offered us abalone and other tacos. I passed, but Rocky bought 2 of them. As he was eating away, I looked back to see the vendors stand and it had a million flies under the glass. Even though I wasn't eating I almost threw up. A Mexican homeless guy came up to our window and asked for a dollar to help him get up to the states to find farm work. Wanting to help get the crops in, I gave him $2. As you might expect, sometime later Rocky hung out the train window and threw up his 50 cent abalone tacos. Guymas was where we and our Mexican friend parted ways, he was off to see his dad in Mexico City.

Finally we arrived in Matazlan. It was a different climate with all the palm and papaya trees, and a cool sea breeze. We hailed a taxi and headed to find a nice beach hotel and settled on the Olas Altas Hotel across the street from the beach. This was downtown and near the first Carlos Anderson's Bar and Hotel. Our Olas Altas Hotel was closed the last time I visited Matazlan, as the entire town has moved north. Next to our upstairs room were some American smokers who for $5.00 sold us a 4 oz. brown paper sack of local buds. This brown sack had a round purple Mexican Agricultural Department stamp on it with the eagle holding the snake. They told us keep it in this bag and you won't get busted as it's an official Mexican Department stamp. We tried a sample with them and decided that it was great smoke. Happily we paid the $5.00. Really stoned, we went exploring around town and past the twin towers Church to the market place. Our cab driver warned us to keep our wallets in our front pockets as the local thieves would slice the bottom of your back pocket and follow you around until your wallet dropped out. This type of local advice we always followed. We bought some small souvenirs and ate some of the local food without all the flies. We took another cab back to the beach and on the way our driver pulled up to the curb and spoke Spanish to a man who was standing on the corner holding a folded up newspaper. The man jumped into the front seat. We had drank too much cerveza to worry about this new rider. Our driver asked us if he could borrow $25 to buy something, and that he would take us to his home for lunch where he would repay us. Not questioning this request, we pulled out the money and our driver gave it to our new companion. Again our driver stopped and let the man out, less his newspaper. Then our driver went about 2 blocks before he held up a government .45 pistol with Mexican pearl eagle grips. This was what our driver bought with our loaned $25. Let me tell you, guns are illegal in Mexico as the government wants to be the only one with guns. Now we were accessories to a gun purchase, and unknowingly had broken a most serious Mexican law.

Good to his word our driver took us home for lunch and for repayment of the loan. At his modest home his wife cooked up a great meal. She made fresh tortillas in front of us as our driver got more beer and treated us like close family. He repaid the money, and ended up giving us the ride for free. We scored a free lunch and ride by helping him with a 10 minute loan.

Stuffed to the max, he dropped us off in front of the Carlos Anderson's bar and restaurant and about a 1/2 block from our hotel. Once inside Anderson's we notice that the walls were covered with thousands of stapled business cards. Tourists had left these as a sign that they has been here. There were about a hundred black and white pictures of marlin and other fish tourists had caught over the years. One picture showed a record black marlin that weighed over 1,400 lbs. We had some Mickey open mouth bottle beers, and walked outside to sit at a table and watch the waves. Kids ran along the sidewalk and asked to shine our shoes for 10 cents. I couldn't pass up a bargain like a 10 cent shine, and then they all fought over us. These kids were said to be descendants from immigrants of India, and they had their beggar mothers huddled nearby. I gave a quarter as a tip for my beautiful shine which only lasted about 1 hour. After that it changed to a glazed pasty color. We ended up getting shines all day long as they wouldn't last. What a con job. After many beers we walked a ways and hit some tourist shops where I bought my trademark straw hat that I've had all these years. At one shop I recognized a fellow shopper as the actor Denver Pyle, [Dukes of Hazzard] who was with a huge man. He and another guy were with 2 foxy blond women. My partner Rocky recognized the big guy as Merlin Olsen, a football player with the L.A. Rams. We just said, "Hi" to our relaxing fellow Americans.

On another day I had on my swim trunks and beach towel, and asked our new friend, the Carlos Anderson bartender to make me a local drink. He said, "You must drink the bull." I said, "What is it?" "It's 7 kinds of rum. I pour them a shot at a time into a big glass and you chug it all. Then you must follow it chugging a cerveza. Not wanting to miss out on a local drink and perhaps custom, I said, "Make it." He poured and poured the rum from 7 different bottles. The colors went from light to dark or dark to light, I just can't remember. Anyway I chugged the rum, the beer, and all. Rocky and I walked outside and bought an unmarked bottle of local suntan oil from a street vendor. I got a Mickey beer bottle full of coconut oil for only 50 cents and walked across the street to the beach. I laid down my towel, and rubbed the oil all over my milk white skin. Then with the "Bull" kicking in, I decided to dive into the ocean. The beach is high and the water much lower. As I was halfway into my dive, I noticed a lounging Stingray with stinger tail, below me in the warm Pacific water. I fanned my arms like two airplane propellers to stop my dive and I was successful. If I had gone in, I would have landed on top of this sea creature. After this shock I stayed out of the water and passed out on my towel. This was around March 23, the solar equinox when the sun reaches it's highest point the in the northern hemisphere. Hours later I was awakened to the sound of the kids coming home from school. They were playing in the tide pools in front of our hotel. I had a nice long sleep on the beach, and was still resting up from the train ride. Then being somewhat sobered up, I realized I was so sunburned that my milky white skin now looked as red as a cooked lobster! The local suntan oil had worked its charm, but it was too much sun on my virgin body. As I moved from the beach I felt a burning in the wrinkles of my skin. I was later diagnosed with 2nd and 3rd degree burns. Some advice, if you aren't pigmented always go easy out in the sun.

We bought a bottle of rum and went up to our hotel room and admired the ocean view and shady breeze. I took a cold shower as I was feeling so hot from my sunburn. We filled up 2 glasses of rum and drank as my water blisters began to appear. Then I put on some of the thin local cotton clothes from the market place, and started getting the shivers. I laid down and after an hour or two and looked at my chest. I now had hundreds of small blisters all over me. I was beyond sunburned I was totally cooked. Rocky was hungry so we painfully walked back to Carlos' for some drinks and dinner. As I walked I could feel the cool come over me as my small water blisters popped giving me some relief. I still didn't feel good. At the bar we met a black guy in a white U.S. Naval uniform. It turned out he was a ship's doctor with the 6th Naval Fleet which was on maneuvers in Mexico. I showed him my severe burns and he said to meet him the next day at the bar. This doctor was a Godsend, as he brought us a bunch of medicine to relieve my pain, and stuff to drop into water so you won't get the [shits] touristas. He was a great guy to help his fellow hippie Americans out. Rocky never used the water drops and he got sick again. He threw up in the bathtub and toilet. He had the shits like you can't believe. Finally when Rocky flushed the toilet for about the 10th time, it came up into the bathtub. What a mess.

After smoking from our official bag, and after many bottles of rum and beer, we slowly healed up. We took one of the pink taxis which were open golf carts to go have dinner at the north beach Mazatlan Del Playa Hotel. This was an upscale hotel, and when we walked in we saw actor Denver Pyle and Merlin Olson having dinner with their ladies. We spoke to them and had a great dinner. Merlin Olsen said "Thank you for recognizing me" as I got his autograph. We had heard about a place called Mother Murphy's Hallowed Grounds. This was a campsite for Hippie types way north of town and after dinner proceeded there by cab. It was rumored that anything goes as the Americans running it paid off the cops. When we arrived we saw palm umbrellas, camp fires and you could smell the marijuana smoke in the air. Half naked women were getting stoned everywhere. Murphy's was a wild place and worth the long rough ride. We decided to get stoned in this wild place and if we met the right ladies to spend the night. Readily being accepted into the group of Americans, we smoked joints around fires on the beach and we did meet the right ladies. We slept with these topless gals and had some pen pals for years to come. My lady was a slinky brunette from Connecticut and Rocky had a blond gal from Arkansas. It was almost love at first sight. Our ladies even traveled back to civilization and stayed a few nights at our hotel. They had their own weed and were great companions.

One day we decided to rent a fishing boat from a Canadian man whose charter business was located next to Carlos'. He said it would be $20.00 each. We paid him $40.00, and agreed to show up the next morning. It was all the beer we could drink, sandwiches, the boat and crew. I want to tell you that this wasn't some panga, as this was a nice 30 foot mahogany boat. The Canadian didn't take us but his crew of 2 local Mexicans did. We went out into the Pacific for a few miles over swells of water. We were trying to take advantage of all the free beers we could drink, when Rocky lit up a number. Smelling it, I became apprehensive about our crew. The crew just spoke Spanish to each other, (mota) smiled and laughed when Rocky lit it up. Slowing down in a known fishing spot, the mate baited our hooks and we went trolling for marlin. There had been a flock of pelicans following us, which would fly along the boat and land in the ocean, and then fly again to keep up with us. Rocky feeling stoned and half drunk, decided to throw out a sandwich to feed them. It was a short fight as one pelican got the entire sandwich. Then we heard the whine of a fishing reel. We had never been ocean fishing so we didn't know what to do other than Rocky picked up his pole from the holder. The tug of the jumping fish popped the pole out of his hands and he lost the pole. The loss of the pole really upset our crew. They were cussing and pointing at Rocky. I thought that we might have to walk the plank for this mistake, but they finally calmed down. They brought out another pole for Rocky. Then my line was hit by another big fish. I didn't do a thing. The mate came over and took the pole as the line whizzed out. He tried to control the fish, but he couldn't reel in the line. The Captain turned the boat around and we followed the fish. Finally some slack appeared in the line and the mate reeled it in pulling up on the fishing pole. Rocky was getting seasick from the great swells and put his head over the side to vomit while the mate was trying to control my fish. Finally the mate handed me my pole and I started to fight with my fish. I struggled to take in line while the fish struggled against me to get away. I reeled in and then the line would whine out against me. Finally after about 15 minutes of reeling, and pulling the pole up to the sky, I had to give up. I gave the pole back to the mate, who then expertly fought the jumping marlin. The marlin was a big one, over 300 pounds. As the fish finally tired the mate gave me back the pole and I finished the fight landing the marlin. While sharing the landing of this fish would not qualify for a contest or world record, we got the Marlin on board. I was exhausted. Rocky was totally disoriented and had vomited throughout the ordeal. When we got back to the marina, the marlin was hoisted and we took pictures next to it. The loss of the fishing pole was forgiven, as we gave this great fish to the Canadian.

That night we walked along and sat on the retaining wall across from Carlos Anderson's, watching all the local ladies. They seemed to require escorts as they were arm in arm or hand in hand. One Mexican gal approached us and asked if we wanted to have some fun. We said, "sure." Then we took her to our hotel room. After checking out the 2 big beds she said she had to leave for a short time. We stayed and eventually she came back. After she came back, we heard a loud knock on our door. We were silent while she asked us to open the door. We thought she went out to find her pimp to roll us, so we told her we couldn't open the door. Finally we got her drunk and I went first. She had huge tits and was a pleasure machine. We spent the night with this sex deprived nympho, and had a great time with her. On the train ride back, we splurged and paid $24.00 for a sleeper car to Mexicali.

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Pipeline (page 4)

America's War on Drugs Simply Feeds the Corruption

By: Frank Lick

If there were no other arguments for the legalization of drugs, the corruption in the Los Angeles Police Rampart Division should certainly convince the unconvinced.

This corruption is (a) primarily drug related, and (b) only the tip of the iceberg of what takes place in the rest of the country. That the problems in Los Angeles are not limited to the Rampart Division is evidenced by the O.J. Simpson trial, in which five black female jurors were chosen by the defense simply because they had witnessed police corruption in West L.A. where they lived and were, therefore, suspect of the police in the first place.

When local police corruption is considered with the CIA's involvement in poppy growing in Southeast Asia to fund overseas covert projects, the death and devastation going on this very minute in Colombia and Mexico as a result of drug sales to this country, the compromised judges, the stockpiling of arms by domestic drug lords and dealers, the people -- many

innocent bystanders -- who are killed every day by over-zealous drug law enforcement people, prison guards who provides drugs for prisoners for money or because of threats to their loved ones on the outside -- it has to be obvious to anyone and everyone who has the God-given capacity to think.

And there remains to be justified a prison population which threatens to overwhelm the prison system, the incarceration in prisons of mentally ill people for drug-law violations who need to be hospitalized, searches and seizures of thousands of innocent people, confiscations of property where no charges are ever even filed -- probably one of the most abused laws stemming from the drug war -- and a general disintegration of individual rights.

When you add to all this the cost of the drug war in dollars, by some estimates, $75 billion a year in public money with an additional $70 billion in consumer money -- the value of such things as burglaries, muggings, car thefts, etc., to pay the billions of dollars the drug dealers are charging for their products -- pretty soon you're talking about real money. How can anyone not see that this is a roller-coaster running out of track?

I have heard and read the arguments that most of the people in prisons are not there for simple drug possession but for felonies, and if their crimes had not been drug-related, it would have been some other crime. I have to ask how many of your grandparents could have been convicted of a felony for making or selling hooch? Had they been sent to prison, all their property confiscated and your mothers reduced to welfare, where would you be today? If your grandfather had not, if he were a hooch maker, been caught and convicted of making hooch, would he have committed some other crime?

Besides police corruption, there are other arguments for the use of common sense on this issue. There is history. Lest we not forget: Beginning in the 1870s in the United States, recreational use of drugs became fashionable and something of an epidemic ensued. The individual states experimented with solutions. Some gave control to doctors, some to pharmacists. Most states settled on education as the best remedy.

It worked. By the 1920s the drug problem had receded from an epidemic to an irritation. However, U.S. foreign policy was making an issue of drugs with China and, irony of ironies, Southeast Asia. Politicians concluded that this policy required setting an example at home, hence, after-the-fact federal drug laws.

Added to the laws was a policy of pretending drugs did not exist. The drug czar of the time, Harry J. Anslinger, resorted to manipulation of statistics, innuendo and untruths to encourage Congress to pass more and more laws to suit his agenda -- not unlike practices rampant today

regarding this issue. Movies, which were censored at that time, were forbidden to mention drugs. Radio shows, celebrities and school teachers were discouraged from mentioning them.

It is also ironic that in the 1930s our government was insisting that China pass laws against the use of drugs when a century before many of the great, old-money families had made their fortunes transporting drugs from India to China. They were supported, no less, by gunboats from this country's Navy and Marines shelling and occupying Chinese river ports. Families, including

the Peabodys, Russells, Forbeses, Lows and, as in Franklin Delano, Delanos.

Oh, the history of drugs

In any event, people who grew up between the years 1934 and 1960 seldom learned anything about drugs. When members of the "turn-on, drop-out" generation of the 1960s was exposed to recreational drugs, they had no reference as to the harm drugs can do and, predictably, another epidemic resulted.

I'm sure it was a coincidence that the federal government became enamored with anti-drug laws at the same the 18th Amendment was repealed. There was, I'm sure, no consideration of the fact that the FBI had all these muscle and gun men, along with their nemesis, the Mob, left over from prohibition, standing around with nothing to do and no reason to shoot at each other.

So here we are, spending billions of dollars attempting to stifle a business that is netting billions for the drug lords. All the while large sums of both billions are lining the pockets of less than forthright politicians, enforcement agents and their friends. And corruption is, but for the famous code of silence, everywhere.

The question, then, is not whether or not there would be more or less addicts with the decriminalization of drugs. The question is: Are we content with the knowledge that such a lucrative source of income as drug money is available to, offered to, forced upon, accepted by the people we elect to office and the people they hire to enforce the laws they pass?

If legalizing drugs resulted in more addicts, could a few more addicts -- who are not necessarily unproductive or menacing to society by themselves, if they did not have to resort to crime to pay for their habit -- be worse than the price we are paying for the war on drugs?

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