The Taliban Is Reported To Have Already Lifted A Ban On Poppy Cultivation Amid Western Fears That It Will Also Unload Its Large Stockpiles Of Opium And Heroin Bracing for a new war, Afghanistan's ruling Taliban is desperate for money. Unfortunately its war-ravaged and impoverished country has only one very exportable commodity: drugs. Some press reports say the Taliban has told farmers they can plant poppy seeds if the United States attacks. In fact, according to a Western intelligence source monitoring Taliban-run Voice of Shariat radio, the Taliban has already scrapped a ban on poppy cultivation, clearing the way for renewed opium and heroin production after little more than a year's break. [continues 945 words]
In the midst of the Asian financial crisis, at least one business is still booming: the trade in narcotics from the Golden Triangle, the main drug-producing area in the world. This year has seen not only another bumper crop of opium from the Burmese sector of the triangle-an area that also includes parts of China, Thailand, and Laos-but also new scourges from laboratories in the remote Sino-Burmese border mountains: first methamphetamines and now also the designer drug Ecstasy. [continues 2828 words]
