Afghan poppy set for another big year, UN report warns

Afghanistan will produce another enormous opium poppy crop this year, close to last year's record harvest, and Europe and other regions should brace themselves for the expected influx of heroin, the United Nations warned Wednesday in its annual winter survey of poppy planting patterns.

Cultivation is still increasing in the insurgency-hit south and west of the country, the report said, and taxes on the crop have become a major source of revenue for the Taliban insurgency.

"This is a windfall for anti-government forces, further evidence of the dangerous link between opium and insurgency," Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, wrote in the report's preface.

The report was released by the Office on Drugs and Crime on Wednesday at an international donors conference in Tokyo.

"Cultivation levels will be broadly similar to, perhaps slightly lower than, last year's record harvest," Costa said. There is some evidence that the sharp increases of recent years are leveling off, which is encouraging, he said, but the "total amount of opium being harvested remains shockingly high." Link