Pubdate: Wed, 11 Sep 2013
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
Author: Emma Graham-Harrison

BUMPER CANNABIS CROP DESPITE CUT IN PLANTING

The amount of farmland in Afghanistan planted with cannabis fell by 
nearly a fifth last year after one province carried out a strictly 
enforced drug eradication campaign. However, a bumper crop showed 
production had risen compared with 2011, said the UN.

Officials in Uruzgan province, which borders Kandahar and Helmand, 
largely stamped out cultivation of the drug, acting out of concern 
that it was financing the Taliban. In 2011 there were more than 1,000 
hectares (2,471 acres) of the crop there, but last year less than 100 
ha. But planting in most other areas remained largely steady, with 
just over half of commercial production concentrated in the south of 
the country.

Overall Afghanistan produced 1,400 tonnes of commercial cannabis 
resin in 2012, the UN Cannabis Survey Report report estimated. Last 
year the UN said Afghanistan's importance as a source of resin for 
world markets could be growing as more farmers grew the crop, amid 
pressure to cease poppy cultivation. But Jean-Luc Lemahieu, of the UN 
Office on Drugs and Crime, said farmers balanced food security and 
family needs yearly and did not rely just on one crop.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom