Helmand Province: World’s Leading Opium Producer
by
mammon
on Sun 01 Nov 2009 08:40 PM AKST
Opium Series
Seeds of Terror by Gretchen Peters, 2009, Excerpts
Helmand Province is about the size of West Virginia. If it were a separate country, it would the world’s leading opium producer, with the rest of Afghanistan in second place. It’s also where links between the Taliban and the opium trade are strongest.
Poppy cultivation has been increasingly concentrated in southern provinces where the insurgency holds sway, but command and control of the southern Afghanistan drug trade is mainly located in Pakistan. Opium is processed into morphine base or heroin in unstable border areas. Profits from the southern drug trade are laundered between Quetta and Dubai, often ending up in western banking institutions.
Major campaigns to wean Helmand’s farmers off of poppy have been expensive failures. Helmand receives more U.S. aid than any other Afghan province. Much of the money is being spent on large infrastructure projects. More that $200 million in U.S. and British funding was designated for Helmand in 2008, a year when poppy output there still increased by 45 percent.
In 2008, Afghanistan produced about twice the amount of opium that the world’s addicts smoke, eat, or shoot for several years now. So where is all that extra dope? UN official s estimate the Taliban and the smugglers they work with have stockpiled as much as 8,000 tons of opium – enough to supply the world’s heroin addicts for two years.
World failing to dent heroin trade, U.N. warns
21 Oct 2009
About 15 million people around the world use heroin, opium or morphine, fueling a $65 billion market, warned Antonio Maria Costa, head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. The trade is fueling terrorism and insurgencies: The Taliban raised between $450 million and $600 million in the past four years by "taxing" opium farmers and traffickers, he says in a new report. Not all the money is going into the pockets of rebels or full-time drug dealers -- some Afghan officials are making money off the trade as well. "The Afghan drug economy generates several hundred million dollars per year into evil hands -- some with black turbans, some with white collars," Costa says. Authorities are seizing too little heroin -- intercepting only about 20 percent of opiate traffic around the world, according to the U.N. report, titled "Addiction, Crime and Insurgency." It comes on the heels of a U.N. warning last month that two years' worth of opium is effectively "missing," probably stockpiled by the Taliban and criminal gangs.
Cheap Heroin
22 Sep 2009
A lethal combination of rock bottom prices combined with a spike in the potency and availability of heroin on Massachusetts streets has led to a startling increase in the number of heroin-related deaths in recent years.
Afghan insurgents are 'weakened'
03 Aug 2009
Armed Forces Minister Bill Rammell has said insurgents in Afghanistan have had their "command and control" weakened by Operation Panther's Claw. Mr Rammell said the recent Operation Panther's Claw mission had succeeded in its aim of clearing the Taliban from strategically important parts of Helmand province.
He said this operation was now being followed up by civil reconstruction projects to provide new schools, clinics, roads, electricity and water. "This is the new push in the cleared area, this is hold and build. Without that follow-up - that civic-political follow-up - we would not be able sustainably to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban," he said. "It brings faith in the Afghan government and provides the opportunity for insurgents to lay down their arms and take up a peaceful life."
US opens 'major Afghan offensive'
02 Jul 2009
The US army says it has launched a major offensive against the Taliban in south Afghanistan's Helmand province. The US military says about 4,000 marines as well as 650 Afghan troops are involved, supported by Nato planes. It is the first such large-scale operation since US President Barack Obama authorized the deployment of 17,000 extra US troops to Afghanistan, as part of a new strategy for winning the conflict. Many of them are being redeployed from operations in Iraq, to help with training Afghan security forces and to tackle the insurgency.
The operation - codenamed Khanjar or Strike of the Sword - began when units moved into theHelmand river valley in the early hours of Thursday. Helicopters and heavy transport vehicles carried out the advance, with Nato planes providing air cover. UK-led forces in Helmand launched their own operation to combat the Taliban insurgency last week, in what the Ministry of Defense described as one of the largest air operations in modern times. Thousands of British forces under Nato command have been fighting the Taliban in Helmand since 2006.
Afghanistan Opium at Record High
27 Aug 2007
The UN says opium production in Afghanistan has soared to record levels, with an increase on last year of more than a third. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime report says the amount of opium produced there has doubled in the last two years. Afghanistan now accounts for more than 93% of the world's opiates.Kyrgyz MP:
Grow Opium to Beat Debt
09 Mar 2007
A Kyrgyz opposition leader has suggested the country cultivate opium in order to prompt foreign creditor nations to provide debt relief. The plan was put forward on Wednesday by Azimbek Beknazarov, leader of the Asaba National Renewal Party, who pointed to Afghanistan as an example of how the trade could be used to win concessions from the West.
"This year Afghanistan announced almost officially that it will increase opium crops. We have to do the same and permit our people to plant opium for a year or two. After that, all the international organizations will be alarmed and will offer to cover our country's debts," Beknazarov said. "To solve this problem [of foreign debt] we need unordinary steps. I know that my suggestion will stir a heated debate," he said.
Warning over Afghan Drug Economy
28 Nov 2006
Afghanistan's soaring opium production threatens to wreck efforts to rebuild the country after years of war, the UN and the World Bank have warned. Afghanistan supplies more than 90% of world opium. The drug trade accounts for a third of the economy and permeates the "higher levels of government", the report said. It says 2006 saw opium cultivation rise by 60% and production by 50%. The UN-World Bank report also called for a "smart and effective" strategy to curb demand in consuming countries, mainly in the West.
Afghan Drug Crop to Flood Europe
28 Nov 2006
European cities risk higher numbers of heroin overdoses as Afghanistan's record opium poppy crop floods cities with the drug, the UN has warned. Europe has traditionally been the biggest market for Afghan opiates and opium cultivation in Afghanistan increased by 59% this year.
Quandary of Afghan Opium Industry
02 March, 2005
Yet again, an alarming study on the rise in opium production in Afghanistan - source for most of the world's supplies of heroin.
