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Afghan Opium Production Reaches Record High

by VOA News

   Afghanistan, the world's largest producer of opium, has harvested a
   record crop this year that more than doubled last year's production, a
   bad omen for fighting terrorism and organized crime, officials say.

   Salamt Azimi, the country's minister for counter-narcotics, told VOA's
   Pashto service that insecurity kept the government from implementing
   poppy eradication programs, leading to a 64 percent jump in land
   dedicated to the lucrative crop to 340,000 hectares.

   Analysts like Azimi's predecessor, General Khody Dad Hazara, said
   corruption and weakness of the government were contributing factors to
   what he called the country's drug-fueled "tsunami" disaster.

   Shift in tactics
   In fighting insurgents, the Afghan government has shifted tactics this
   year to focus on protecting heavily populated areas. With the Taliban
   and other extremist groups bolstering their efforts to destabilize the
   administration, they have managed to seize more land and produce more
   opium to fund their push.

   Last year, poppies were cultivated on 201,000 hectares, yielding 4,700
   tons of opium, up 46 percent from 2015. Sources told VOA's Pashto
   service more than 10,000 tons of opium were produced this year. Opium
   then can be refined into heroin.

   The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime estimated that opium accounted for
   some 16 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product last year,
   including more than two-thirds of the entire agricultural sector. In
   addition to fueling insecurity, violence and insurgency, the drug
   production is discouraging private and public investment, a UNODC
   report said.

   Afghanistan's opium production plunged in 2001 after the Taliban-led
   government banned it. But it jumped back to pre-ban levels - and higher
   - after the U.S. led invasion of the country late that year. The U.S.
   has spent billions of dollars trying to quell the problem by
   encouraging farmers to raise other crops.

   Taliban protection
   U.S. anti-drug officials say the Taliban provides protection to
   traffickers in exchange for weapons, funding and other support. A
   single kilogram of heroin can generate approximately $1.5 million by
   the time it reaches users, and the U.S. is trying to cope with a rise
   in addiction to opiates, both prescription drugs and illegally produced
   drugs like heroin.

   That leads to opportunities to bribe police, judges and customs
   officials, feeding Afghanistan's endemic corruption and scaring off
   foreign investment.

   "The main threat to the success of the war (on terrorism) is
   corruption," John Sopko, who heads corruption watchdog Special
   Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the watchdog
   for the $113 billion that the U.S. has given the country, said earlier
   this year.

   President Ashraf Ghani warned, years before he became the country's
   leader, that Afghanistan had the potential to become a narco-terrorist
   state.
   [This story originated in VOA's Deewa Service.]