https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/402/afghanopium.shtml

Afghanistan, by far the world's leading supplier of opium with an 87% market share, will produce only slightly less opium this year than last despite a government crackdown on peasant poppy farmers and rapidly increasing international efforts, led by Britain and the United States, to suppress the country's number one cash crop, the United Nations estimated late last month. UN officials crowed that the amount of land devoted to poppy crops had declined by 21% compared to last year, but Afghanistan will still produce 4,100 tons of opium, down only 2% from last year's 4,200 tons.

	incised papaver specimens (opium poppies)

"We see a significant improvement in the amount of land cultivated in Afghanistan, a major reduction. One field out of five that was cultivated in 2004 was not cultivated this year," said UN drug control head Antonio Costa in an August 29 interview with the Associated Press. But while the acreage cultivated was down, productivity had increased, Costa said, explaining that "heavy rainfall, snowfall and no infestation of crops resulted in a very significant increase in productivity."

On a sober note, Costa also predicted it would take 20 years to wipe-out poppy cultivation in Afghanistan. The crop is a mainstay of many small farmers, he said.

Meanwhile, Agence France Presse reported that foreign troops in the country as part of the UN's peacekeeping contingent view drug cultivation and smuggling as a bigger threat than Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, both of which remain active and are increasing their attacks four years after the US invaded and installed the regime headed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. "The enemy's motivation is mainly criminal, not political," said Colonel Peter Baierl, the German commander of the Provincial Reconstruction Team in the northeastern city of Faizabad. "Smugglers and drug wars," not the Taliban, are the biggest problem for his troops, he said. His troops "are not particularly welcome" in drug producing areas, he added.

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