CNN.com - Opium hits record in Afghanistan - Aug 16, 2006

CNN.com - Opium hits record in Afghanistan - Aug 16, 2006:


KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Opium cultivation in Afghanistan has hit record levels -- up by more than 40 percent from 2005 -- despite hundreds of millions in counternarcotics money, Western officials told The Associated Press.
The increase could have serious repercussions for an already grave security situation, with drug lords joining the Taliban-led fight against Afghan and international forces.
A Western anti-narcotics official in Kabul said about 150,000 hectares (370,650 acres) of opium poppy was cultivated this growing season -- up from 104,000 hectares (257,000 acres) in 2005 -- citing their preliminary crop projections. The previous highest recorded figure was 131,000 hectares (323,700 acres) in 2004, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

'It is a significant increase from last year ... unfortunately, it is a record year,' said a senior U.S. government official based in Kabul, who like the other Western officials would speak only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive topic.

Final figures, and an estimate of the yield of opium resin from the poppies, will be clear only when the U.N. agency completes its assessment of the crop, based on satellite imagery and ground surveys. Its report is due in September.
The United Nations reported last year that Afghanistan produced an estimated 4,500 tons of opium -- enough to make 450 tons of heroin -- nearly 90 percent of world supply.