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Troop Deployment (Afghanistan)

The whole House will welcome the clarification that the Secretary of State has given us this afternoon. Surely there is nothing more important than the decision to deploy our service people in a country where their lives are at risk. I hope my right hon. Friend agrees that on narcotics, the best contribution that we could make would to limit the consumption of narcotics in this country. I trust that we will not make the mistakes that were made in south America. There is no military solution to the drugs problem. The only solution is to get involved with communities and provide encouragement and incentives to the small farmers to produce alternative crops. Of course, that will displace some of the narcotic crop to other countries.