AFGHAN OPIUM HARVEST DOUBLES IN 2 YEARS

UNITED NATIONS - Opium production in Afghanistan has increased by 34
percent over the past year, and the country is the source of 93
percent of the heroin, morphine and other opiates on the world market,
according to a report by the United Nations' antidrug agency.

"Afghanistan's opium production has thus reached a frighteningly new
level, twice the amount produced just two years ago," said the U.N.
Office on Drugs and Crime's annual opium survey, released Monday in
Kabul.

"Leaving aside 19th century China," the report states, "no country in
the world has ever produced narcotics on such a deadly scale."

The raw material for heroin grows on 477,000 acres of Afghan land, a
17 percent increase from last year's record 408,000 acres, the U.N.
report states. The amount of Afghan land used for opium has surpassed
the total used for coca cultivation in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia
combined. Afghanistan was on track to produce 9,000 tons of opium this
year, U.N. officials said.

The surge in opium production has frustrated U.S. and NATO military
commanders, who think the trade is a linchpin of funding for a Taliban
insurgency that has become increasingly deadly the past two years.
Commanders also think the involvement of public officials in the drug
trade has undermined Afghans' confidence in their government.