A former NATO ambassador says that Afghanistan's poppy crop should be legalized so that the opium can be used to ease a worldwide morphine shortage, the CanWest News Service reported March 2.

Gordon Smith, Canada's former NATO ambassador, said in a report for the Canadian Defense and Foreign Affairs Institute that the current NATO-led poppy-eradication program in Afghanistan is alienating farmers and forcing them into the arms of the Taliban or drug traffickers.

Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the world's opium supply.

"In a perfect world, nobody would be allowed to grow poppies and all would be well," said Smith, currently executive director of the University of Victoria's Center for Global Studies. "It would never be leak-proof. It's not a frightfully good option, but it's better than any others that anyone else has come forward with."