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Afghan Production of Opium Increases After Fall of Taleban
Friday, September 27, 2002
(15:49 UTC)
By Michael Drudge
VOA News

DrugScope spokesman Harry Shapiro says the task ahead is enormous in the aftermath of 23 years of war and chaos in Afghanistan. “The infrastructure of the country has collapsed and, really, their only commodity that is in any sense going to earn them any income is the opium poppy. And so, not surprisingly, they are taking advantage of the fact that they are now able to grow it again."

LONDON -- VOA
Britain's leading non-governmental anti-drugs group says opium production in Afghanistan has shot up by at least 900 percent since the fall of the Taleban regime last year. The group, called DrugScope, is urging Western governments to redouble efforts to rebuild Afghanistan, so poor farmers will turn away from the lucrative drugs trade.

The DrugScope organization says Afghanistan will produce between 1,900 and 2,700 tons of opium this year, compared with just 185 tons in 2001.

The group says the figure last year was especially low, because Afghanistan's then-ruling Taleban militia had outlawed cultivation of opium poppies, the raw ingredient for heroin.

U.N. drug experts say 75 percent of the world's heroin is produced from poppies grown in Afghanistan.
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2002 © Voice of America.

Dan