The British Medical Association has said that using the opium harvests could benefit the NHS and Afghanistan if the harvests are used to legally produce diamorphine, also known as heroin, for patients in Britain.
Afghanistan and NATO have struggled to curb the illegal heroin industry in the country and have considered destroying the poppy fields. The majority of the illegal drug trade comes from a resurgent Taliban area in the southern Helmand province.
“There must be ways of harvesting it and making sure that the harvest safely reaches the drug industry which would then refine it into diamorphine,” said Dr Vivienne Nathanson, the BMA’s head of science and ethics.
“It should be possible, and really Government and the international groups that are in Afghanistan should be looking at this and saying how can we convert it from being an illicit crop to a legal crop that is medicinally useful.”
The lack of diamorphine in the NHS is partly blamed on diamorphine injection having to be freeze-dried in a specialized process so the manufacture of these painkillers is restricted, although the Department of Health has said the problem is improving.
Britain is the leading Western government supporting Afghanistan's anti-drugs policy.