Orders of the Day — Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 1:41 pm on 7 December 2004.

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Photo of Paul Flynn Paul Flynn Labour, Newport West 1:41, 7 December 2004

Following decades of abject failure in Colombia—all the efforts there have not reduced the production of drugs; in fact, they have reduced that country to bloody chaos and permanent war—are we not doing the same thing in Afghanistan, where drug production has increased? Even if we were successful in decreasing production, it would then spread to Pakistan, Myanmar and Kazakhstan, just as production in Colombia has spread to Peru and Bolivia. Is not trying to solve the problems on the streets of Birmingham and Chicago by disrupting the economies of third-world countries futile, and is there not a grave danger that we are embarking on the "Colombia-isation" of much of central Asia?