Pubdate: Mon, 19 Aug 2002
Source: International Herald-Tribune (France)
Copyright: International Herald Tribune 2002
Contact:  http://www.iht.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/212

OPIUM POPPY FLOURISHES AS IN '90S, UN REPORTS

The new Afghan government has "largely failed" in its four-month effort to 
eradicate the opium poppy crop in Afghanistan, which in recent years has 
become the world's biggest producer of the raw material for heroin, United 
Nations experts reported Sunday.

Their figures suggest that this year's crop, close to the high levels of 
the late 1990s, could be worth more than $1 billion at the farm level in 
Afghanistan.

"That's a big chunk of GDP," said Hector Maletta, a spokesman for the UN 
Food and Agriculture Organization. This impoverished country's gross 
domestic product for 1999, the latest estimate available, was $21 billion.

In 2000, the Taliban banned poppy cultivation, and UN and U.S. drug 
agencies determined that this led to almost total eradication.
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