Pubdate: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 Source: Tampa Tribune (FL) Copyright: 2007 The Washington Post Company Contact: http://www.tbo.com/news/opinion/submissionform.htm Website: http://www.tampatrib.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/446 Authors: Colum Lynch and Griff Witte, Washington Post Staff Writers Referenced: The UN report http://www.unodc.org/pdf/research/AFG07_ExSum_web.pdf Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Afghanistan Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin) AFGHAN OPIUM HARVEST DOUBLES IN 2 YEARS UNITED NATIONS - Opium production in Afghanistan has increased by 34 percent over the past year, and the country is the source of 93 percent of the heroin, morphine and other opiates on the world market, according to a report by the United Nations' antidrug agency. "Afghanistan's opium production has thus reached a frighteningly new level, twice the amount produced just two years ago," said the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime's annual opium survey, released Monday in Kabul. "Leaving aside 19th century China," the report states, "no country in the world has ever produced narcotics on such a deadly scale." The raw material for heroin grows on 477,000 acres of Afghan land, a 17 percent increase from last year's record 408,000 acres, the U.N. report states. The amount of Afghan land used for opium has surpassed the total used for coca cultivation in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia combined. Afghanistan was on track to produce 9,000 tons of opium this year, U.N. officials said. The surge in opium production has frustrated U.S. and NATO military commanders, who think the trade is a linchpin of funding for a Taliban insurgency that has become increasingly deadly the past two years. Commanders also think the involvement of public officials in the drug trade has undermined Afghans' confidence in their government. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake