*Source: DTN News / Int'l Media
(NSI News Source Info) KABUL, Afghanistan - September 3, 2009: A new UN report says opium production in Afghanistan has fallen, while prices for the illicit crop drop to their lowest level in a decade.
In this July 16, 2009 file photo, police officers from the district of Argu, swing away with long sticks to eradicate a patch of illegally grown poppies in the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan. Two years ago, opium the raw ingredient used to make heroine was grown on nearly half a million acres in Afghanistan, the largest illegal narcotics crop ever produced by a modern nation. A government crackdown on poppy cultivation has spelled economic disaster for many communities throughout the country.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a Wednesday report that out of the narco state's 34 provinces, 20 are currently poppy-free. Opium production consequently fell 22 percent to reach 123,000 hectares from 157,000 hectares in 2008.
"The bottom is starting to fall out of the Afghan opium market," UNODC executive director Antonio Maria Costa said in the report.
"For the second year in a row, cultivation, production, workforce, prices, revenues, exports and its GDP share are all down, while the number of poppy-free provinces and drug seizures continue to rise," the report added.
The drop has also affected the country's southern province of Helmand. From 103,590 hectares in 2008, only 69,833 hectares were still devoted to poppy growing in Helmand, which accounts for nearly 60 percent of all opium production in Afghanistan.
The current drop in production will mostly affect neighboring Iran, which has the world's highest drug-seizure rates but also suffers from drug crime and abuse problems.
ADVANCE FOR AUG. 2; graphic shows opium cultivation in Afghanistan. A government crackdown on poppy cultivation has spelled economic disaster for many communities throughout the country.
Iran has dug huge trenches on its border to slow down the drug smugglers, who have killed more than 3,600 Iranian law enforcement officers in the past two decades.
While being credited by the UN for the seizure of 84 percent of the opium netted around the world in 2008, Iran has also taken action to impart its experiences in fighting drugs to Afghanistan.
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