In the face of failed U.S.-backed efforts to eradicate opium poppy production in Afghanistan, some lawmakers, scientists and economists are proposing that Afghan farmers be encouraged to grow their crops for medicinal use, not to produce heroin.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Dec. 29 that U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-St. Louis) is among the supporters of the idea and said he will push the idea with his new colleagues on the House International Relations Committee. "You can't just cut off the poppies because that's the livelihood of the people who live there," Carnahan said. "But providing them with alternative legal markets for pain-relief medication is a way to help cut back on that heroin supply."

It has been done before: under a decades-old, U.S.-brokered treaty, farmers in Turkey and India turned to growing poppies for medicine, and Australia grows special poppies that don't produce morphine but do yield thebaine, which also can be used to make painkillers.

Afghanistan now produces 90 percent of the world supply of heroin. But Bush administration officials said that while they welcome new ideas, they doubt that the plan would provide enough economic incentives to Afghan farmers to abandon the illicit drug trade. Tom Schweich, a senior State Department official in charge of U.S. efforts to fight Afghan poppy production, said Afghanistan also lacks needed infrastructure and oversight. "You really need to keep it illegal and eradicate it," Schweich said.

Carnahan's interest in the issue arose in part from staff meeting with local experts like Percy Menzies of Assisted Recovery Centers and Dan Duncan of the St. Louis chapter of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, who pointed out the role of Afghan heroin in the city's rising heroin problem -- including among the middle class.