DRUG CZAR OUTLINES PLANS AT CSIS FORUM

WASHINGTON, Feb. 25

( UPI ) -- The effort to rebuild Afghanistan is a fight balanced between the forces of the allied coalition on one side and that nation's poppy growers on the other, John P. Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said Monday.

"We are faced with a situation that essentially involves two large economic redevelopment programs that are being launched in Afghanistan," Walters said following a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. "The smaller one is being undertaken by the United States and its allies and the other is being undertaken by the opium producers."

Like many unexpected results of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the agenda of the nation's drug czar has the potential to evolve into one of greater prominence on the world stage. Though the position has typically involved working with officials from drug producing nations such as Columbia and Afghanistan, the administration's efforts to wrap its anti-drug policy within the battle against international terrorism has moved the ONDCP's importance outside its traditional role of advocacy and policing.

In a preview of his testimony before the House Government Reform Committee Tuesday, Walters said controlling Afghan opium production was an administration "priority," but that it would take time given the instability in the country.

He also said that despite the traditional view that opium production is ultimately beyond the policy reach of U.S. government, the dynamics of the world trade in the drug have "never been closer in our grasp."

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