14 DAY TRIAL // In three days, heroin has hooked you. To remove the danger, opium production must be stopped. But the fight against opium crops is a sweet-bitter one: when they are eradicated in one place, they pop up in another. An UN report shows that while the opium production in the Golden Triangle (Burma-Laos-Vietnam) has been almost wiped out, in Afghanistan it has reached records.
"Efforts to eradicate the world's drug problems are paying off as cultivation, production and abuse appear to have stabilized on a global level. ", said the report released by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
The Golden Triangle, once one of the largest sources for heroin, is a success: the region is now "almost opium free" due to crackdowns on poppy farming. But worldwide opium production has reached a record 6,610 tonnes in 2006, up 43 % from 2005, due to a booming in Afghanistan production.
"The production and consumption of cannabis, cocaine, amphetamines and ecstasy have stabilized at the global level - with one exception. The exception is the continuing expansion of opium production in Afghanistan." the 2007 World Drug Report said.
Afghanistan produces 92 % of the world's opium and its production rose by almost 50 % in 2006 despite internationally backed efforts to destroy its poppy fields.
"For no other drug is production so concentrated in a single area. This expansion continues to pose a threat to the security of the country and to the global containment of opiates abuse." said the report.
"Illicit cultivation in southern Helmand province matched that of entire countries," signaled UNODC head Antonio Maria Costa.
"Income from the industry in Afghanistan tops three billion US dollars annually and helps finance the hardline Taliban-led insurgency plaguing the country." said Afghan officials.
Local conflicts, like in Afghanistan, are increasing the drug problem.
"Sophisticated laboratories inside Afghanistan are now converting 90 % of their opium into heroin and morphine before smuggling it around the world," UNODC officials said in Kabul.
"The issue of narcotics is a problem that cannot be solved in a year or two. Afghanistan is a war-torn country. There is no proper infrastructure, there is no proper roads... each and every thing has fallen apart. But as development takes place, as police reform grows (and) the judicial system improves, I can guarantee that there will be certainly in the future a reduction in the drugs problem." said the Afghan counter-narcotics minister, Habibullah Qaderi.