WE are continually being told that part of the reason for Britain having an armed presence in Afghanistan is - as well as stopping the Taliban from gaining control of the country again - to eradicate the production of poppies which are used for the production of drugs for sale worldwide.

It seems strange that we are told that drugs are one of the main reasons for us being there but, with aid from America in the form of £18.4m, a new bridge has been built between Afghanistan and Tajikistan, a country through which most of the poppy production of Afghanistan travels.

New Labour is spending billions on the armed conflict in Afghanistan, but surely for a fraction of the money being spent on fighting, the entire poppy crop of the country could be bought and then destroyed without any conflict with the local population.

At the same time it would improve the local economy, cutting off money to the Taliban and ensuring that a full year's poppy production is taken out of the drugs trade.

Peter Dolan, Newton Aycliffe.

IT is a well known fact that Afghanistan has been the major supplier of the opium poppy for decades, but I sometimes think we are there solely to protect this item for the American drug barons.

We go on about this fantastic spyin- the-sky satellite technology which can read a car number plate, yet it cannot pick out the Afghan poppy fields.

I realise the people who pick the poppy seeds do so under armed guard. However, there is no excuse for us not to do a leaflet drop saying we and the Americans are going to bomb or spray a deadly poison making the fields useless for years to come. We must destroy this industry. It may cost lives, but how many will it save?

JM Gowland, Newton Aycliffe.