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Bridgeburner
Not spiritual at all.
Registered: 09/16/06
Posts: 20,010
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Afghan opium output leads world despite drought, eradication campaigns
#8830255 - 08/26/08 11:19 AM (15 years, 6 months ago) |
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Drought and anti-drug campaigns helped slash Afghanistan's opium poppy cultivation by 19 per cent this year, but the country is still by far the world's leading source of the heroin-producing crop, the UN said Tuesday.
Successful anti-poppy campaigns in the country's north and east were mainly to thank for the drop in production, the UN said.
But it added that fields in the south - where the Taliban insurgency is strongest - remain awash in poppies, which produce opium, the main ingredient in heroin.
And because of a rise in yield, opium production this year will fall only six per cent compared with last year's record haul. That means the Taliban stands to again earn tens of millions of dollars from the drug trade to support the insurgency.
Still, the UN and other drug officials said this year's results provide reason to be cautiously optimistic.
"The opium flood waters in Afghanistan have started to recede," the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said in its report, Afghanistan Opium Survey 2008.
Last year opium farmers cultivated 193,000 hectares, compared with 157,023 hectares in 2008. Helmand province - the country's most violent region - accounted for 66 per cent of the overall crop, with cultivation up slightly from 2007.
But the number of opium-free provinces rose from 13 to 18 after extensive anti-drug efforts in the north and east. Anti-drug officials were particularly proud that Nangarhar - last year's second highest-producing opium province - was free of the drug this year.
"This is a remarkable accomplishment, the first time it happens in the country's modern history," the drug report said.
The UNODC said the country's anti-poppy successes could be attributed to good local governance and drought, which hurt poppy growth in the north and east.
The UN also warned that the government could not let cannabis - the precursor to marijuana that is growing in popularity among Afghan farmers - replace opium. It also said the country needs a better justice system to prosecute traffickers, landowners and corrupt government officials who turn a blind eye to the drug trade.
"Until they all face the full force of the law, the opium economy will continue to prosper with impunity, and the Taliban will continue to profit from it," the UNODC said.
It also said the world has a surplus of opium hidden in storage.
The price of fresh opium at harvest dropped 20 per cent, from $86 a kilogram to $70, reducing the overall value of this year's Afghan harvest to $732 million from $1 billion last year.
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Esophagus
Mr. Poops
Registered: 07/08/08
Posts: 203
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Re: Afghan opium output leads world despite drought, eradication campaigns [Re: Bridgeburner]
#8830981 - 08/26/08 02:26 PM (15 years, 6 months ago) |
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They fucking bash these people for growing them, yet MOST OF THEM DON'T EVEN WANT TO GROW IT. If they had other alternatives they would but the government doesn't live up to their promises. They're just killing these people. Take it as if you were them.
-------------------- "First of all, I don't see America having problems." --George W. Bush, interview with Bob Costas at the 2008 Olympics, Beijing, China, Aug. 10, 2008
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stinkbuttdog
I scat.
Registered: 04/08/07
Posts: 514
Loc: In the zone, cabrone!
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Re: Afghan opium output leads world despite drought, eradication campaigns [Re: Esophagus]
#8832299 - 08/26/08 07:31 PM (15 years, 6 months ago) |
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Yeah, you're right... they would grow other stuff... maybe food if pro-humanity campaigns were the current world order instead of this New World Order bullshit they (elites)enforce. One thing which really is getting to me about all of this is how by means of a TELEVISION media blitz Big Money was able to manipulate a WHOLE COUNTRY which still believes it is free...
Well, I hope they can fool the US again this next campaign, I hate to think of what could happen if they can't:)
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numonkei
Back! From thedigestive tractof dave theiguana!
Registered: 04/12/06
Posts: 2,500
Loc: A Tree
Last seen: 7 years, 5 days
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Re: Afghan opium output leads world despite drought, eradication campaigns [Re: stinkbuttdog]
#8832438 - 08/26/08 07:58 PM (15 years, 6 months ago) |
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You don't destroy your best cash crop.
Especially when the best customers are your enemies. All your friends make enough on their own to supply themselves, and some other second world countries.
~Monk
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