Opium production has skyrocketed in Afghanistan, according to the latest U.N. report, offsetting massive reductions in other parts of the world.
The U.N. World Drug Report says that opium production in Afghanistan rose by 50 per cent in 2006 to 92 percent of the world's total, bringing global heroin production to a record high of more than 7300 tonnes.
This is despite 80 per cent less cultivation in the Golden Triangle region of South-East Asia since 2000 and a 10 per cent reduction of cultivated areas worldwide.
In Afghanistan, 165,000 hectares are now devoted to opium poppy cultivation, the largest area ever recorded, with the bulk being grown in the southern Helmand Province.
"In Afghanistan, opium is a security issue more than a drug issue," said the U.N.'s drugs chief Antonio Maria Costa in a press release.
"The Helmand Province, severely threatened by insurgency, is becoming the world's biggest drug supplier, with illicit cultivation larger than in the rest of the country put together and even than entire nations, such as Myanmar or even Colombia," Mr Costa said.
"Effective surgery on Helmand's drug and insurgency cancer will rid the world of the most dangerous source of its most dangerous narcotic and go a long way to bringing security to the region."
Mr Costa said Africa was particularly threatened by traffickers seeking out new routes, warning that the spread of drug use across Africa "could cause havoc across a continent already plagued by many other tragedies".
"Africa is under attack, targeted by cocaine traffickers from the West [Colombia] and heroin smugglers in the East [Afghanistan]," Mr Costa said.
Released on Tuesday June 26, the report said that despite the growth in Afghanistan, the world's drug problem is being contained. Global markets for the main illicit drugs remained stable over 2005–06 and for the first time in decades there was no global increase in the production and consumption of cannabis.
Feeds