Afghanistan turning to be center of global drug supplies
VIENNA: The United Nations said Helmand province of Afghanistan is fast becoming the largest source of global drug supplies.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) said in its 2007 World Drug Report Tuesday the province, situated in the southern part of the country and which is the center of activity of the Taliban guerillas fighting the western forces, grew more drugs than the total amount cultivated by other narcotics-producing countries like Myanmar, Morocco and Colombia.
The report's author, Thomas Pietschmann, said the province has around 70,000 hectares under poppy cultivation, "which is three times the total area under cultivation in Myanmar."
UNODC's director Antonio Marias Costa, in a note forming part of the report, said, "Curing Helmand of its 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."
Opium production in Afghanistan reached a record at 596 tons in 2006, accounting for 92 per cent of all opium produced in the world, the report said, adding the Helmand province is "becoming the world's biggest drug supplier."
The report said the total area of land used for illegal poppy cultivation around the world came down by 10 per cent during 2000-2006, but opium production rose by a huge 43 per cent to 6,610 tons in 2006 from 2005.
The report cautioned that the poor countries in the African continent are becoming targets of international drug trafficking. Africa is under attack, the report said, as it is being targeted by cocaine traffickers from Colombia and heroin smugglers from Afghanistan.
Costa, however, sounded optimistic when he said in his note, "Progress made in some areas is often offset by negative trends elsewhere. But overall, we seem to have reached a point where the world drug situation has stabilized and been brought under control."
He said, "For the first time in years, we do not see an upward trend in the global production and consumption of cannabis."
The report also said cocaine production has remained largely stable over the past few years and output of amphetamine-based stimulants too have come down by 2 per cent to 478 tons in 2005.
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