The United States is to dramatically overhaul its anti-drug strategy in Afghanistan, phasing out its opium poppy eradication program, the US envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan said.
U. S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the President's Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said on Saturday that poppy eradication - for years a cornerstone of US and UN drug trafficking efforts in the country - was not working and was only driving Afghan farmers into the hands of the Taliban.
"Eradication is a waste of money," Holbrooke said on the sidelines of a G8 foreign ministers' meeting on Afghanistan, during which he briefed regional representatives on the new policy.
"It might destroy some acreage, but it didn't reduce the amount of money the Taliban got by one dollar.
"It just helped the Taliban. So we're going to phase out eradication," he said.
Eradication efforts were seen as inefficient because too little was being destroyed at too high a cost, Antonio Maria Costa, the UN drug chief said.
The old policy was unpopular among powerless small-scale farmers, who often were targeted in the eradication efforts.
Read the rest of the story from it's source, Al Jazeera.
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