Afghan opium production out of control

The Helmand Province in Afghanistan accounts for at least half of the world's opium, according to a new report from the World Drug Report.  Afghanistan as a whole produces 90% of all opium worldwide:

The report says Afghanistan is unlikely to regain real security until the production of illegal drugs is tackled.

In the 1980s, Afghanistan produced some 30% of theworld's opium, but now that figure has more than tripled, the UNdocument says.

It says that Helmand province alone cultivates almost half the world's illegal opium.

Thomas Pietschmann, the report's author, says production in Helmand has now outstripped that of entire countries.

"The province of Helmand itself is around 70,000hectares under cultivation, which is three times the total area undercultivation in Myanmar (Burma).

"So only one province, three times as important as thewhole of Myanmar, the second-largest opium-producing country," MrPietschmann says.

Countries that rely on only one or two resources to finance their economy turn out to be corrupt.  Whether it is oil or opium dependence, whoever controls those resources will do anything to hold onto power.  Profit always comes before emocracy.  The US has 30,000 troops in Afghanistan.  But the opium-producing warlords are really the ones with all the cards.