AFGHAN DRUGS SKYROCKETING

MOSCOW -- Opium production in Afghanistan has increased by 150 per
cent since a NATO-led security and development mission entered the
country in 2001, Russia's Federal Drug Control Service said yesterday.

"Afghanistan has become the absolute leader in narcotics production,
producing 93 per cent of the world's entire opiates. Afghan drug
dealers have in two years set up the successful production of cannabis
(marijuana, hashish) with over 70,000 hectares of land being
cultivated, taking Afghanistan into second place in the world behind
Morocco in terms of the cultivation of such drugs," the service said
in a statement.

Since the Taliban regime was overthrown in the 2001 U.S.-led campaign,
Afghanistan, with almost all its arable land being used to grow opium
poppies, remains the world's leading producer of heroin.

According to the United Nations, Afghanistan's opium production
increased from 5.534 tonnes in 2006 to 7,440 tonnes in 2007.

Meanwhile, in one of the largest marijuana seizures in its history,
the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Narwhal scooped up more than 130
steamer-trunk-sized bales of marijuana thrown overboard by a speedboat
off the coast of Baja California.

Coast guard spokesman Lt.-Cmdr. Chris O'Neil said he did not have an
estimate for the street value or tonnage of the seizure.