Al-Jazeera English: UN says Afghan opium harvest down

[SealLion]

This is a good news article.

Opium farming in Afghanistan has declined by 22 per cent this year as prices for the drug tumbled, causing farmers to switch to other crops, the UN has said.........The West, which has made wiping out the crop part of its eight-year battle against the Taliban in the country, is likely to welcome the findings.

But the decline, the second in the last two years, seems to be a result of simple economics, rather than law enforcement efforts.

overall it's quite a drop still.
Check it out, though.

.....Opium now makes up just four per cent of Afghan GDP, compared to 7 per cent in 2008 and a record 27 per cent in 2002, a year after the Taliban were ousted..

the article goes on to state that some of the opium is in stashes at the moment and " that massive stockpiles of the drug could fund instability for years to come"



Here's the link:

Al Jazeera English - CENTRAL/S. ASIA - UN says Afghan opium harvest down

It's a moderate read. Not too long.

[slikrapid]

i had a feeling i did post something about opium earlier, so here it is:

Before 1980, Afghanistan produced 0% of the world's opium. But then the CIA moved in, and by 1986 they were producing 40% of the world's heroin supply. By 1999, they were churning out 3,200 TONS of heroin a year * nearly 80% of the total market supply.

.Opium now makes up just four per cent of Afghan GDP, compared to 7 per cent in 2008 and a record 27 per cent in 2002, a year after the Taliban were ousted..

the question is whether these numbers are calculated from opium's harvesting price (what i suspect it is) or its market price as a ready-to-use product (which is substantially higher)

let me just add another well known fact - the UN forces were known to silently approve growing of marijuana near their outposts and were regular customers using this product, shall we assume the us troops are holier than thou? yeah, think again

[SealLion]

I am wondering if they allowed the growing of opium near thier camps so as to keep them withing thier domain or area while fighting the Taliban.

They maybe didn't want the agricultural workers growing opium near any Taliban who would have been ready to make a profit off, of the growers, then.

So to minimize any profit potential of the Taliban, they may have wanted the growers to be near thier own troops.

Maybe some of the troops did travel on unofficial business of some sorts and then decided to use the opium for obvious personal usuage.

They may have even travelled on official business of some sorts to visit the opium growers and maybe get some Taliban information off, of them and in the meantime, they, the troops that is, decided to also buy ( or whatever they did) some opium.

Yes, you could be right there. I don't know as I've never come across that info yet. Though if I would imagine that if it was in the mainstream media, then more than likely it wouldn't have been publicized.