Pubdate: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 Source: Houston Chronicle (TX) Copyright: 1999 Houston Chronicle Contact: http://www.chron.com/ Forum: http://www.chron.com/content/hcitalk/index.html Page: 30A 60 PERCENT MORE OPIUM HITS MARKET Afghanistan Crop Is Large Chunk Of Boost VIENNA, Austria -- Opium production soared to record levels in Afghanistan this year, increasing the world's supply of the illicit crop by 60 percent, despite assurances from the country's Taliban rulers that they are combatting narcotics, the United Nations said Friday. Once refined into heroin, the crop will find its way to markets in Western Europe and the United States unless countries bordering Afghanistan can intercept shipments, the U.N. International Drug Control Program said. In its annual opium survey, the U.N. agency, which is headquartered in Vienna, said Afghanistan's total production of raw opium for 1999 was estimated at a record 5,000 tons -- more than double last year's harvest of 2,300 tons. That brought this year's total estimated production of illicit opium worldwide to about 6,600 tons, an increase of about 60 percent over last year, the drug control program said. Afghanistan now accounts for 75 percent of the world's raw opium. Other major producers are Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Pakistan and Colombia. "UNDCP has been very successful in working together with a number of countries towards reducing production of illicit drugs," the executive director of the drug control program, Pino Arlacchi, said. "Unfortunately, this has not been the case in Afghanistan, and the results are there for all to see." Arlacchi called for strengthening the capabilities of countries which border Afghanistan to interdict opium exports. Arlacchi described Russian authorities as extremely worried that profits generated by Afghan opium could be used by Islamic militants to destabilize Tajikistan and other neighbors in Central Asia. He said he planned to ask the United States and other U.N. members to draft a strategy to block opium exports through the countries that border Afghanistan. To compile its survey, the U.N. program employed Afghans to travel through rural areas where opium cultivation had been reported and to interview farmers and officials. The United States takes a similarly pessimistic view of Afghanistan's expanding production. But its estimates, based on a different methodology that involves satellite imagery, are more conservative. The State Department reported in March that Afghanistan produced 1,485 tons of opium in 1998, still ranking first in the world. The State Department has not release its 1999 estimate. - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart