Opium cultivation largely unchanged

Afghanistan remains the largest opium producer in the world, having just reaped a fresh opium harvest of more than 3,000 mt, according to figures released in New York on Friday. Executive Director of the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP) Pino Arlacchi, citing the findings of the annual survey by experts within the country, said there had been no substantial change in the area under poppy cultivation in Afghanistan for year 2000. The survey revealed that a total of 3,275 mt of raw opium were produced in the current year, 28 percent less than last year’s record output of 4,581 mt. “The reduction was mainly due to the drought that ravaged southern Afghanistan and many parts of the North,” Arlacchi said. The two provinces of Helmand and Nangarhar, with over 62,000 hectares under poppy cultivation, acounted for some 76 percent of the national total. The highest opium production was recorded in the district of Nad-e-Ali, Helmand province with an output of 425 mt. The Taliban control 96 percent of the land given over to poppies. “Of the 327 tonnes of heroine produced in Afghanistan, about half is consumed in Pakistan and Iran,” Arlacchi said. “The other half ends up in Europe,” he added. The ideal long-term solution to Afghanistan’s drug problem was to encourage the production of other crops, Arlacchi said. In the three districts of Ghorak, Khakrez and Maiwand, in Qandahar province, where the UN International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) is implementing alternative development projects, a decrease of about 50 percent in the opium harvest has been recorded. At a high-level meeting held at the United Nations in New York today senior officials from China, Iran, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and the United States approved a regional drugs control programme designed to improve information exchange and to promote cooperation on the prevention of illicit cross border drug shipments. Arlacchi hailed the efforts of Tajikistan which had seized 800 kg of heroin during the past six months. UNDCP started the annual poppy survey in 1994 in response to what it said was the alarming increase in poppy cultivation. The survey is ground-based, using a combination of rapid field measurement techniques and key informant interviews throughout all poppy growing areas of the country.