The Ultimate Concession

For more than 400 years, some of the world's best opium poppies have been grown in Turkey. The Turks use the seed for cooking oil and food seasoning, the stalk for fuel and animal fodder. From the pod they extract raw opium for the making of medicinal morphine. Currently, the poppy provides the main source of income for 80,000 farmers and earns Turkey about $5,000,000 per year in foreign exchange.

Out of a crop of 150 tons of poppies produced per year, however, only about 60 tons reach legal collection stations. Practically none of the crop is used for domestic narcotics production: the Turks themselves have never had an addiction problem of any consequence. Instead, some 90 tons of poppies are exported illegally, in the form of opium gum, primarily to Marseille. There, well-financed hoodlums--many of them Corsicans--supervise its refinement into morphine base and heroin for shipment to the U.S. Of all the heroin currently reaching the U.S. with disastrous effects, 80% is believed to originate in Turkey.

Under pressure from the U.S. over the past several years, the Turks have reduced the number of provinces where poppies can legally be grown from 21 to four. They have also established a system of inspection stations which, by the end of this year, is scheduled to number 53 offices manned by 500 agents. Last week the Ankara government made the ultimate concession: it agreed to abolish poppy production completely by the middle of 1972. "It is," said one U.S. diplomat, "like banning corn production in Iowa."

Mindful of the political risk the Turkish government was taking, the U.S. promised to increase its aid and technical assistance to help Turkey convert from poppy growing to other farm products. President Nixon made a special point of appearing before TV cameras with the Turkish Ambassador to Washington and praising Turkey's Premier Nihat Erim for his "courageous, statesmanlike action." Secretary of State William Rogers told TIME Correspondent William Mader: "The decision may create difficult domestic problems for Turkey, but it was taken in the interest of the international community. When we in the U.S. have so many teen-agers dying of heroin addiction in our cities, we particularly appreciate Turkey's action, and we hope that other nations involved [in opium production] will show the same sense of international responsibility."

The Turkish decision may well prove to be the most important step yet taken in controlling the import of heroin into the U.S. But its lasting effectiveness will depend on the ability of the U.S. to persuade the other major opium producers--notably Burma, Thailand, Laos and Afghanistan--to take similar action.

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