A look at the opium poppy production problem in southern Afghanistan
By APThursday, July 2, 2009
A look at poppy production in southern Afghanistan
Helmand province, where 4,000 U.S. Marines launched a major anti-Taliban offensive Thursday, is the world’s largest cultivator of opium poppies — the crop used to make heroin.
TOP SUPPLIER: Afghanistan grew 93 percent of the world’s poppy crop last year, with Helmand alone responsible for more than half of the opium production in the country, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
FUNDING MILITANCY: U.N. officials allege that hundreds of million dollars from the multibillion dollar trade go to fund the Taliban-led insurgency, or line the pockets of corrupt government officials and warlords.
U.S. POLICY: Last week, America’s top envoy in the region, Richard Holbrooke, said poppy eradication — for years a cornerstone of U.S. and U.N. anti-drug efforts in the country — was not working and was only driving Afghan farmers into the hands of the Taliban.
The old policy was also deeply unpopular among small-scale farmers, who often were targeted in the eradication efforts.
The new approach will try to wean the farmers of the lucrative cash crop by giving them help to grow other produce, like wheat, corn and pomegranates.
According to a recent U.N. report, opium eradication reached a high in 2003, after the Taliban were ousted from power, with over 51,900 acres (21,000 hectares) destroyed. In 2008, only 13,500 acres (5,480 hectares) were cut down, compared with 47,000 acres (19,047 hectares) in 2007.
FOCUS ON DRUG LORDS: In recent months, U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan have begun attacking drug labs and opium storage sites in an effort to deprive the Taliban of drug profits.
