26 June 2004	Saturday	07 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425

ISLAMABAD, June 25: On the eve of the 'World Drugs Day' the situation in Pakistan is getting more serious as officially confirmed figures show that there are 3.5 to four million addicts in the country and the number of chronic heroin addicts is 500,000.

The official data on drugs in the region involving Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran shows that there is an estimated production of 36,000 metric tons of opium only in Afghanistan from 100,000 hectares under poppy cultivation.

According to official figures, the department concerned and the law enforcement agencies managed to make seizures amounting to a little over 4,000kg of opium and over 20,000kg of hashish during the year 2002-2003.

The situation reflects that a huge quantity of opium and other illicit drugs still go unaccounted for and is spread not only in the region but beyond other continents.

When contacted, the director-general of the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF), Maj-Gen Nadeem Ahmed, told Dawn that despite best efforts of his department as well as other agencies involved in the fight against drugs, people involved in the business managed to smuggle huge quantities of drugs out of the region.

He said the year 2003 and 2004 saw a resurgence of poppy cultivation in some areas in the tribal belt as well as in Balochistan.

"We reacted swiftly to the situation and destroyed 62 per cent of the crop cultivated over an area of 6,680 hectares in the year 2002-03 and again 78 per cent of the crop cultivated on an area of 6,616 hectares in the year 2003-04. It was a successful operation but the worrisome part was that people were again turning towards poppy cultivation," the ANF chief said.

However, he attributed the trend to the ongoing anti-terror operations, both in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan.

"It is difficult to run both anti-terror and anti-narcotics operations in the same areas at the same time.

In the anti-terror operation the government needs the backing and support of the local people.

"And if you start hurting their economic interests they would immediately withdraw their support against the terrorists. These people who turned to poppy cultivation over the last two seasons took advantage of the situation," he said.