UN Security Council targets heroin in Afghanistan

The U.N. Security Council called Wednesday for better cooperation from nations that aren't complying with an international treaty that seeks to restrict chemicals used in Afghanistan's heroin trade.

The council resolution, proposed by France and approved in a 15-0 vote, urges better coordination with the International Narcotics Control Board, which monitors how well U.N. drug control treaties are implemented.

"Trafficking of drugs in Afghanistan undermines efforts to achieve governance," said Deputy Ambassador Jean Pierre Lacroix of France. "It's a source of financing for terrorism and threatens the country's stability and security."

The council seeks to enforce a 1988 drug treaty by insisting that Afghanistan, its neighbors and other nations work "to eliminate loopholes" used by crime gangs to obtain chemicals needed to turn opium into heroin — particularly acetic anhydride, hydrochloric acid and acetone.

"The practical effect will be a large one," Afghan Ambassador Zahir Tanin told reporters after the vote. "If we are able to work together to stop the arrival of producers, we will break the chain which is the production of heroin inside the country."

Afghan officials said Wednesday that they had found 260 tons of hashish hidden in 6-foot-deep trenches in southern Afghanistan in what was described as possibly the world's biggest drug bust.

But Afghanistan's biggest problem is opium, not hashish. Last year, the country's farmers grew enough opium — 9,000 tons — to produce 880 tons of heroin, or 93 percent of the world's supply.

The council's resolution preceded a Paris conference Thursday at which at least 67 nations are expected to craft a better strategy for improving Afghanistan's security and development as well as pledge money for that effort.

Afghan leaders hope to raise up to $20 billion in immediate help for their desperately poor, war-scarred nation. The U.S. plans to pledge about $10 billion over two years.