Afghanistan opium at record high

by BBC (reposted)

Mon, Aug 27, 2007 8:42AM

Monday, August 27, 2007 : Opium production in Afghanistan soars by more than a third to record levels, a UN report says.

Afghanistan's opium production has doubled since 2005

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime report says the amount of opium produced there has doubled in the last two years.

It says Helmand province is now the biggest single drug-producing area in the world, surpassing whole countries such as Colombia.

Afghanistan now accounts for more than 93% of the world's opiates.

Despite billions of dollars of aid and tens of thousands of international troops, the report says 193,000 hectares of opium poppies are being grown in Afghanistan.

'Insurgency link'

"The results are very bad, terrifyingly bad, because cultivation has increased by 17% to an historic level," said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the Office on Drugs and Crime.

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For more information: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/...

§Counter-Narcotics in Afghanistan II: The Value Chain, The Corruption Chain

by Informed Comment Global Affairs (reposted)

Mon, Aug 27, 2007 8:42AM

From a Saturday, August 25, 2007 entry on Informed Comment Global Affairs, a group blog run by Juan Cole, Manan Ahmed, Farideh Farhi, and Barnett R. Rubin

In the first installment of this series, I took the release of the new "U.S. Counternarcotics Strategy for Afghanistan" as the occasion to analyze some flaws in the US approach.

As I noted there, in these posts I will confine myself to considering strategies within the framework of the current international prohibitionist regime for narcotics, including opium and its derivatives. In a recent Washington Post article, Misha Glenny shows how the "War on Drugs" is damaging our security. The next few years of drug policy in Afghanistan, however, will conform to that regime, which I take as a given here.

In the first installment, "Defining the Problem," I argued that the U.S. Strategy defined the problem posed by drugs in Afghanistan correctly, as "drug money" that "weakens key institutions and strengthens the Taliban."

§Record Crop for Afghan Opium Poppies

by NPR (reposted)

Mon, Aug 27, 2007 8:43AM

A U.N. report says 95 percent of the world's opium comes from Afghan fields and poppy production there is expected to top all records this year. Mark Schneider, a senior vice president with the International Crisis Group, talks with Renee Montagne.

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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...

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