With Afghan President Visiting White House, Schumer Blasts Republicans for Eliminating Provision to Boost Narcotics and Opium Enforcement in Afghanist

With Afghan President Visiting White House, Schumer Blasts Republicans For Eliminating Provision To Boost Narcotics And Opium Enforcement In Afghanistan

With Afghanistan Opium Production Up 50 Percent This Year Strengthening Taliban Regime, Schumer Amendment Would Have Increased Funding for Counter-Narcotics Five-Fold

House-Senate Conferees Eliminated $700 Million to Break Rash of Opium Production that Threatens to Devastate the Fragile Nation

U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today criticized the Republican led House-Senate Defense Appropriations Conference committee's decision to eliminate from the final legislation his amendment that would have allocated $700 million in additional funding for counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan. So far this year, overall opium production in Afghanistan has grown 50 percent to a record 6,100 metric tons, meaning the nation now provides 92 percent of the world's supply of opium, the basis for heroin. Schumer said he will continue to fight for additional resources for DOD, the Drug Enforcement Agency and State to combat this problem.

"The Republican's decision to take the meat ax to this vital funding puts the future of Afghanistan is in grave jeopardy," Schumer said. "If the drug trade continues to surge and consume Afghanistan, our troops' heroic efforts may be undone. The Taliban draws its strength from the drug trade and in order to prevent it from reclaiming the country; we need to crack down the drugs that fuel its regime. My amendment would have given the Department of Defense the resources it needs to attack this problem before it becomes far worse."

Schumer's amendment was unanimously approved by the Senate on September 7th after a Republican-led move to table the amendment was defeated 45-51. The Department of Defense is the lead counter-narcotics agency in Afghanistan and works with the Department of State which encourages farmers to switch from growing poppies to other alternative crops. Last year, those two agencies received a combined total of approximately $350 million for DOD counter-narcotic efforts in Afghanistan. Schumer's amendment would have increased that amount by $700 million.

There have been widespread reports that opium production is on the rise and, in part, is supporting the Taliban's resurgence across the embattled nation. This year's opium crop in Afghanistan could be worth more than $4 billion, up from $2.7 billion in 2005. The bulk of the opium production increase is out of the Helmand province, where production is up 162 percent. At the same time, the Helmand province has seen a rise Taliban-led attacks that has produced the worst fighting in the region in years.

The production and sale of opium, which is the basis product for heroin, has a direct effect of the stability of the new democratically elected government in Afghanistan, because the Taliban, removed from power by the United States in 2002, generates roughly 70% of its income through the production and sale of opium. U.S. officials have identified narcotics trafficking as a primary barrier to the establishment of security in the country. In a report released by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, rampant opium production and illicit drug trafficking could cripple the already fragile government.

http://schumer.senate.gov/SchumerWebsite/pressroom/record.cfm?id=263871&&year=2006&