AFP: In 2016 Afghanistan, which produces 80 percent of the world’s opium, made around 4,800 tonnes of the drug bringing in revenues of three billion dollars, according to the United Nations. The Taliban — which banned poppy cultivation when it ruled Afghanistan — now appears to wield significant control over the war-torn country’s heroin production line,
The Diplomat: Opium has an analgesic effect and is the base for morphine, heroin, and other opioids that are used for medical purposes, but also for illegal drug consumption. Afghanistan accounts for some 70 percent of the global opium production, according to the World Drug Report 2016 of the United Nations Office on Drugs and
VOA News April 4, 2017 KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — An Afghan official says that in the past 12 months the country’s counter-narcotics department has seized almost 650 tons of contraband drugs and alcohol. Gen. Baz Mohammad Ahmadi, deputy interior minister for the counter-narcotics police, says the confiscated drugs include raw opium, heroin and hashish. He says that
CNBC: Last week, Afghanistan released new data showing opium production is surging, information that dovetailed with a widely circulated 2016 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report that showed similar findings. The primary problem is a new strain of genetically modified seed that comes from China, which allows poppies to be grown year round.
AA: Illegal poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has surged by 10 percent, the country’s Counter-Narcotics Ministry said Saturday. Ministry spokesman Mohammad Hanif told reporters in Kabul that besides the traditional areas of poppy cultivation in the country’s south and southwest, the northern province of Badghes has fueled much of this year’s surge in illegal poppy cultivation. Click