TD fears Afghan heroin plague

A SOUTHSIDE politician has expressed fear that increased poppy cultivation in Afghanistan will lead to a flood of heroin onto Dublin’s streets.

Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Seán Crowe TD, called on Ireland and the EU to do more to stop the cultivation and transportation of the deadly narcotic during Parliamentary Questions to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade in the Dáil last week.

Deputy Crowe said that according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, poppy cultivation in Afghanistan rose to a new high of more than 200,000 hectares in 2013, a 36 per cent increase.

“That is the size of approximately 283 Phoenix Parks,

? Deputy Crowe said.

“The UN estimates that total opium production reached roughly 5,500 tons.

“It is now believed that 75 per cent of the world’s heroin is produced in Afghanistan and we know that one of the key target markets for this drug will be Europe.

“Over the past three decades in Dublin we have all seen the devastating impact that cheap and widely available heroin can do to communities and individuals.

“I have stood over too many graves and attended too many funerals not to be concerned about this new development.

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Deputy Crowe added:

“It is important that we stop this drug at its source before it even gets here, and that means EU countries working with the Afghan government, as well as the governments of Iran and Pakistan, whose territories are used as supply lines to transport this opiate.

“Afghanistan is one of the most impoverished countries in the world so it is vital that the focus is not entirely just put on stopping poppy cultivation and farmers growing the crop but also on developing socio-economic programmes, with realistic and sustainable substitutes for the poppy introduced.

“As long as we think we can have short-term, fast solutions to this huge problem, we are doomed to continue to fail, but Ireland and the EU must act with urgency now.

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