(23 Jan 2002)
1. Wide of opium field with farmers praying
2. Wide of field with farmer tending young crop
3. Mid shot of farmer tending crop
4. Close shot of hands tending poppy sprouts
5. SOUNDBITE (Pashtu) Naqeeb Ullah, Poppy farmer
"If we get any aid today, we will gladly destroy all these crops tomorrow. We would be happy to stop this because it's hard work and the pay is not good. But we don't have a choice."
6. Crowded street in city of Kandahar
7. People walking in street
8. Opium shop with men sitting around stove with opium
9. Weights on scale
10. Bag of opium being weighed on scale
11. SOUNDBITE (Pashtu) Rehmath Shah, Opium trader
"In Afghanistan, there are no factories or industry in which we can work, there is no other business. We only have this and in all the villages you will find the same thing."
12. Shah testing opium
13. Shot of opium in the bag
14. SOUNDBITE (Pashtu) Haroon, Opium dealer
"This opium which I sell is brought to me by the farmers. Then I take it to the market and am paid a commission for doing so."
15. Shah burning opium to test its quality
16. Close up of opium on knife burning in gas flame
17. Close up opium being melted on cloth to test quality
18. Wide shot Shah and another trader testing opium
STORYLINE:
The cultivation of the opium poppy continues in Afghanistan, despite the interim government's ban on the production and sale of the narcotic.
Interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai issued a decree prohibiting poppy production and the production and trafficking in narcotics, including opium and heroin.
But the country remains one of the world's top producers of opium - its refined derivative is heroin.
The southern city of Kandahar is one of the main centres for growing the poppy and the selling of its dark brown sap, opium.
Farmers who grow the opium poppy and traders who sell the drug say the lack of industry in their war-torn country leaves them little alternative for survival.
Traders bring the opium from the farms to buyers in the city - there the opium is tested and graded according to quality and purity.
The UN says Afghan farmers, landowners and sharecroppers need an alternate means of earning a living before they can be expected to withstand the temptation to grow the lucrative poppies.
The UN drug agency is due shortly to visit Afghanistan to assess how widespread the cultivation is despite the ban.
At the Afghan aid donors' conference in Tokyo this week, some four and a half (b) billion US dollars was pledged to help rebuild Afghanistan, conditional on it shedding its title as one of the world's top opium producers.
Widespread thought is that cotton is the appropriate plant to replace the poppy.
Narcotics have been a major source of illicit income for Afghanistan and Karzai's administration has been under pressure to launch a full-scale crackdown against the trade.
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