Скачать или смотреть Opium production at record high despite international efforts

(13 Nov 2013) Afghanistan's opium production surged this year to record levels, despite international efforts over the past decade to wean the country off the narcotics trade, according to a report released on Wednesday by the United Nations drug control agency.
The harvest this past May resulted in a staggering 5,500 metric tons (6,060 tons) of opium, 49 per cent higher than last year and more than the combined output of the rest of the world.
Even Afghan provinces with some past successes in combating poppy cultivation saw those trends reversed, according to this year's annual UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report.
At a news conference in Kabul, Din Mohammad Mubarez, the Afghan Anti Narcotics acting minister explained that from their research it appeared that "The biggest reason for an increase in the poppy cultivation" was a "lack of security in provinces with highest cultivation rates like Helmand Nimzor, Farah, Kandahar and Urozgan provinces."
The withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan next year is likely to make matters even worse, Jean-Luc Lemahieu, the UNODC regional representative in Kabul told said.
He warned that as international assistance falls off, the Afghan government will become increasingly reliant on illicit sources of income.
Lemahieu also said Afghanistan was "confronted with an enormous addiction problem" and now it had "the biggest opium cultivation witnessed ever and this in a consecutive three years time."
Uncertainty is also driving up poppy production, as farmers worry about the country's future.
The big increase in production began in 2010 when farmers rushed to plant and take advantage of soaring prices, a result of a crop disease the previous year, the US military surge in the south and the announcement of the US and NATO's transition out of Afghanistan, Lemahieu said.
Lemahieu said those who benefited from the drug trade included farmers, insurgents and many within the government.
Often, he said, they work together.
Khan Bacha, who cultivates a small plot of land in eastern Nangarhar province, a Taliban stronghold, said the insurgents charged farmers a "religious tax" of one kilogramme (2.2 pounds) of opium for every 10 kilogrammes (22 pounds) produced - though the price was "negotiable."
Past attempts by the international community to combat opium cultivation have included introducing alternative crops and paying farmers in some areas not to plant poppies.
That backfired when farmers elsewhere started growing poppies in the hopes of getting money if they stopped.
Cultivation also appears to be spreading to new parts of the country - with Afghans planting poppies in some 209,000 hectares (516,450 acres) across 17 provinces this year, compared with 154,000 hectares (380,540 acres) in 15 provinces in 2012, according to the report.
The vast majority of Afghanistan's poppy cultivation takes place in the south, southwest and east, areas where the Taliban insurgency is thriving.
But Kabul province in central Afghanistan saw a major spike: a 148 per cent increase in cultivation between 2012 and 2013.
But it wasn't all bad news in the report, which said Afghanistan has expanded its social services to deal with a growing addiction problem at home.
"These are tangible and hopeful signs of improvement," the report said.
There are roughly one million drug addicts in Afghanistan, 15 per cent of whom are women and children, according to Kanishka Turkistan, spokesman for the ministry of public health.


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