Afghan drugs: Opium price rises by 133%
The price of Afghan opium rose dramatically in 2011, the UN has said. - Opium poppy farmers in Afghanistan probably earned more than $1.4bn (£910m) last year - equivalent to 9% of the country's GDP, it estimates. Prices started to rise in 2010 after the poppy crop was hit by a fungal disease. The head of the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime said opium helped fund the Taliban insurgency and fuelled corruption in Afghanistan. "Opium is a significant part of the Afghan economy," Yury Fedotov said. Around 90% of the world's opium comes from Afghanistan, according to the office, which carries out an annual survey of production there. The Afghan Opium Survey for 2011 found that the value of opium in the country had increased by 133%. Areas of poppy cultivation which had been affected by the fungal disease in 2010 recovered and yields went back up. Last year's survey had predicted a rise in poppy planting as farmers responded to higher market prices.
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Glen Ford: Americans Are Deeply Involved In Afghan Drug Trade - The U.S. set the stage for the Afghan (and Pakistan) war eight years ago, when it handed out drug dealing franchises to warlords on Washington's payroll. Now the Americans, acting as Boss of All Bosses, have drawn up hit lists of rival, “Taliban” drug lords. “It is a gangster occupation, in which U.S.-allied drug dealers are put in charge of the police and border patrol.” “U.S.-allied drug dealers are put in charge of the police and border patrol, while their rivals are placed on American hit lists.” If you’re looking for the chief kingpin in the Afghanistan heroin trade, it’s the United States. The American mission has devolved to a Mafiosi-style arrangement that poisons every military and political alliance entered into by the U.S. and its puppet government in Kabul. It is a gangster occupation, in which U.S.-allied drug dealers are put in charge of the police and border patrol, while their rivals are placed on American hit lists, marked for death or capture. As a result, Afghanistan has been transformed into an opium plantation that supplies 90 percent of the world’s heroin. [Illustration: David Dees]