KABUL, AFGHANISTAN -- As the international community searches for alternative livelihoods for poppy farmers, one answer may be growing right under their noses.

According to a nonpartisan think tank in Paris, there is a worldwide shortage of morphine and codeine, two medicines produced from poppies. Emmanuel Reinert, the executive director of the Senlis Council, estimates the global need to be 10,000 metric tons of opium based on per capita differences in consumption between Europe and poorer regions of the world.

Afghanistan produces 4,000 metric tons of opium illegally. Reinert says many people forgo the medicines because they are priced too high, and Afghan production could help drive down prices.

Currently, India and Turkey are the major producers of opium for medicines. Suppliers are licensed and closely monitored by an international control board that requires strict monitoring of the crop.

U.S. and Afghan officials express doubt that Afghanistan can achieve a high enough level of security to make this idea practical. ''For the time being, we don't have the monitoring capacity,'' said Mirwaiz Yasini, Afghanistan's deputy minister for counternarcotics.

Legalizing some cultivation could also undermine efforts to deter growing, says Bobby Charles, former U.S. assistant secretary of state for international narcotics law enforcement. ''Anything that went about legalizing an opiate in that market would send exactly the wrong message. It would suggest there is something legitimate to growing.''

Paul Fishstein, an analyst with the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, an independent think tank in Kabul, says that outside political pressure on Afghanistan to eradicate the crop makes this idea a ''long-term prospect'' at best.