Afghan opium 'hits record output' (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Jonathan Beale
BBC News, Washington

Opium production in Afghanistan reached record levels last year, the United States has said.

The US State Department's annual report on narcotics also said the flourishing drugs trade was undermining the fight against the Taleban.

It warned of a possible increase in heroin overdoses in Europe and the Middle East as a result.

Poppy production rose 25% in 2006, a figure US Assistant Secretary of State Ann Patterson described as alarming.

Four years after the US and its British allies began combating poppy production, Afghanistan still accounts for 90% of the world's opium trade.
***
more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6410263.stm

[Whoa_Nelly]

1. Well, well....guess that $42M+ that Cheney gave the Taliban back in April 2001

just wasn't enough incentive to get the to stop growing it! :sarcasm:

[Bonobo]

2. And now our drug interdiction $$ and resources are gone to Iraq.

That's okay, we'll catch 'em here to support our burgeoning incarceration and SWAT industry.

[kurth]

3. Mission Accomplished

The Taliban is back, and opium production is going great!

[Rick Myers]

4. We're Number One!!! We're Number one!!!

:grr:

[rurallib]

5. Top quality too! (uh - or so I hear)

[Hekate]

6. We knew this was coming years ago. It's the best cash crop Afghan farmers have...

...and the US explicitly did not subsidize them to prevent them from doing this.

IIRC, the Taliban suppressed poppy growth very harshly, so when the US took over this did NOT have to happen. Again, IIRC, the average income needed to support an Afghan farm family is in the neighborhood of $8,000 a year, which is a drop in the bucket of the war costs we are paying.

These people are, by and large, poor. They need to feed their families -- and others are only too happy to buy their harvest of opium, because all along the line from there to the heroin seller in New York City, people will pay money for it.

We have already seen the results of cheap opium and heroin being available in the cities that border Afghanistan -- more addicts. And more addicts yet to come in the US. They wouldn't grow it if we didn't buy it.

Stupid stupid stupid BushCheney administration. Stupid stupid stupid.

Hekate

[orwell]

7. But hey...

...look over here. The US just accused Venezuela of drug dealing...

I'm so glad that Afghanistan is "liberated."

[slackmaster]

8. Why did they decide to report this now?

Harvest time is late spring in the Northern Hemisphere.

[PittPoliSci]

9. doesn't this story crop up every year about this time? n/t

[slackmaster]

11. Not at this time, but every year

Right now opium poppies in most places in the Northern Hemisphere are small seedlings.

In my area they start blooming no earlier than mid-April, more normally the middle of May. Opium production, if one were to harvest it on that schedule, would be completely done by July.

[Turbineguy]

10. Hey! Quit yer bellyachin'!

Bringing down the price of heroin. The Bush Administration works for YOU!

[noonwitch]

12. Good news for european junkies, bad news for cops.

If Afghan heroin is primarily imported within the middle east and to europe, where does the junk americans buy come from?