AFGHAN OPIUM TRADE HITS NEW HEIGHT

U.N. Report Describes a Scale of Narcotics Production Not Seen in Two Centuries

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

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

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

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

Neighborhoods of mansions have gone up in Afghan cities in recent
years, with many of the houses financed by drugs. The newfound wealth
in a country that remains desperately poor has spurred resentment
among many Afghans who blame their government and the international
community for not doing more to give people an economic alternative to poppies.

Seven years ago, the Taliban leader Mohammad Omar banned the
cultivation of opium poppies -- but not their export -- on the
grounds that growing them violated the principles of Islam. But the
report says that Taliban leaders have reversed their position and are
now using drug profits to buy weapons and logistical equipment and to
pay the salaries of their militia.

The vast majority of Afghanistan's opium poppies are grown along the
border with Pakistan, in five southwestern provinces with a Taliban
presence, according to the report. Helmand, a Taliban stronghold that
accounts for half of the country's opium, "has become the world's
biggest source of illicit drugs, surpassing the output of entire
countries like Colombia (coca), Morocco (cannabis), and Myanmar
(opium) -- which have populations up to twenty times larger."

"The Afghan situation looks grim, but it is not yet hopeless," the
drug agency's executive director, Antonio Maria Costa, said in a
prepared statement. He cited evidence that several provinces in
central and northern Afghanistan have eradicated their opium fields.
The northern Afghan province of Balkh has seen a decline in opium
cultivation from 17,000 acres to zero. The report attributes the drop
to economic incentives and security guarantees that "have led farmers
to turn their back on opium."