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Pakistan is poppy-free: U.N.

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD June 8 . The United Nations has declared Pakistan a poppy-free country after a decade-long effort by various national and international agencies.

Pakistan emerged as one of the poppy cultivating countries after it was actively involved in the U.S.-Soviet Union proxy war in Afghanistan. Thanks to the Afghan `jehad', thousands of people in Pakistan became drug victims. Pakistan has claimed that due to the strict enforcement of anti-narcotics laws, the courts in narcotic offences have awarded 47 death sentences and 337-life imprisonment since 1995.

``However, none of the convicts have been executed so for since their appeals are pending in courts at present,'' the Director-General of the Anti Narcotics Force (ANF), Zafar Abbas, told Associated Press of Pakistan (APP). Among the convicts were four foreigners, eight women smugglers (four of them foreigners).

The laws are being amended to enable the ANF to detain the women accused of narcotic offences.

Maj. Gen. Abbas said the ANF was establishing a model addiction treatment and rehabilitation Centre in Islamabad. It will initially have a 20-bed indoor facility that will be replicated in the country after its successful completion in the federal capital.

The ANF, with financial assistance from the UNODC at a total cost of $547,000, has upgraded 16 treatment centres. The purpose is to streamline treatment and rehabilitation facilities throughout the country.

The ANF has also launched a project costing $277,000 for a period of three years (2002 to 2004) in eight selected districts (two from each province) of Pakistan.

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