U.N.: POPPIES MAIN EXPORT OF AFGHANISTAN

KABUL, Afghanistan - Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, the source of
most of the opium and heroin on Europe's streets, was up sharply this
year, reaching the highest levels in the country's history and in the
world, the United Nations announced on Thursday.

" In Afghanistan, drugs are now a clear and present danger," said
Antonio Maria Costa, director of the U.N. Office of Drugs and crime,
on the release of the 2004 Afghanistan opium survey. " The fear that
Afghanistan might degenerate into a narco-state is becoming a reality.

Afghan officials and foreign diplomats called the rise in cultivation
and production a major failure for President Hamid Karzai and the
international effort to counter narcotics.

More than 321.236 acres of land were planted with poppy in 2004, a 64%
increase over last year, the survey found. Poppy has spread to every
province in the country, it said.

It was only by chance that drought and disease ravaged much of the
crop and prevented the harvest from exceeding the all-time high, the
report said. The harvest in 2004 was estimated at 4,200 metric tons,
an increase of 17 percent from last year.

The scale and spread of poppy cultivation is especially alarming,
because of the stranglehold wealthy traffickers and drug lords hold
over farmers, and their influence over the economy and government,
Afghan officials and foreign experts said.

The income from production and trafficking of opium in 2004 was
estimated at $2.8 billion, equivalent to about 60 percent of the
country's legal gross domestic product, or more than a third of the
total economy.

There are indications that al-Qaida and the Taliban are profiting from
the trade, the report said.

Gen. Muhammad Daoud, the recently appointed deputy interior minister
in charge of countering narcotics, noted that "87 percent of the
worlds opium is produced by Afghanistan." He added:

"Unfortunately that is a very negative point for our country, and we
will not gain any benefit from it, except a few smugglers in our
country and neighboring countries.