Afghanistan's poppy harvest is expected to top all records this year as the country spirals deeper into a vicious circle of drugs, corruption and insecurity. A United Nations report due on Monday will announce that Afghanistan is now producing nearly 95 percent of the world's opium, up from 92 percent in 2006, officials and diplomats say.
This marks the sixth straight year of rises since US-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in 2001 - despite hundreds of millions of dollars pumped into programmes to halt cultivation, processing and trafficking of the drug.
"It is a very bad situation definitely, and the government has not been able to deal with it in the right way, otherwise it should have at least been stabilised or contained," said Christina Oguz, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Afghanistan.
"The same goes for the international community." Afghanistan is locked in a vicious circle in which drug money corrupts government and helps fund the Taliban insurgency. That weakens state control over parts of the country, which in turn leads to more insecurity and more drug production.
The scale of the problem is huge. Opium and the heroin made from it are estimated to be worth some $3 billion to the Afghan economy, about a third of its gross domestic product.
Security is key. The Taliban managed to drastically reduce the 2001 poppy crop as they held most of the country firmly under their control and implemented strict punishments for offenders. Now, some 70 percent of opium production comes from provinces in the south where the Taliban insurgency is strongest.
People who have seen the UNODC and Afghan Counter-Narcotics Ministry report say one of the few bright spots in it is the rise in opium-free provinces from six last year to around 10 in 2007 - all in the north where security is best.
Both traffickers and the Taliban have a common interest in instability and lawlessness, Afghan and foreign officials say.
"Traffickers are equipping and providing funds for terrorist organisations that are responsible for many attacks in Kabul, other parts of the country and other parts of the world," said Counter-Narcotics Ministry spokesman Zalmay Afzaly.
Insecurity also leads farmers to plant poppy, as fighting may prevent them from getting perishable crops to market.
"The great thing about opium is that it lasts for 20 to 30 years-it's money in the bank," said a senior Western diplomat. "So if you're not sure you can get your onions or carrots to market as they may go off because it's too insecure to move, then you grow opium and put it under your bed-it's a currency."
While foreign forces regularly inflict crushing battlefield defeats on the Taliban, even optimists do not expect an end to the insurgency anytime soon.
Meanwhile, the notoriously corrupt, poorly equipped and badly paid Afghan police are unlikely to be able to do much to stop drug producers and traffickers, let alone the kingpins that run the trade and have thus far remained free from prosecution.
The Afghan Counter Narcotics Ministry says it has not had enough evidence to bring corrupt officials to book. The United States had championed aerial spraying to eradicate poppy crops, but that idea has been quietly dropped for another year due to objections from the Afghan government, worried about adverse public reaction, diplomats say.
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