Afghanistan - Poppy Growing - Question....

[global1]

I overheard a conversation on a plane the other day where the gist was that the Poppy Growing in Afghanistan is more/worse than ever and it has gotten worse since We've been there.

Is this true? Is the U.S. fostering illegal drug trade?

[SteppingRazor]

1. It is far, far worse than before we showed up...

Under the Taliban, the penalty for growing poppies was death. So, not a lot of growers.

Records from before that time are nonexistent, so it's impossible to say this is the worst EVER. But it is far worse since we showed up.

That said, I'd rather have people growing poppies than getting beheaded for doing so.

[acmejack]

2. Poppy Growing in Afghanistan

snip>
Afghanistan is now the world’s largest exporter of heroin, and the opium used to produce it, supplying 87 percent of the world market. And it is creating an infrastructure of crime and corruption that threatens the government of President Hamid Karzai.

The heroin trade begins with fields of opium poppies grown in almost every province of Afghanistan. Last year, according to the U.S. state department, 206,000 hectares were cultivated, a half a million acres, producing 4,000 tons of opium, most of which was converted into 400 tons of illegal morphine and heroin in laboratories around the country.

How much opium and heroin is that?

“It is not only the largest heroin producer in the world, 206,000 hectares is the largest amount of heroin or of any drug that I think has ever been produced by any one country in any given year,” says Robert Charles, who until last spring was assistant secretary of state for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, overseeing anti-drug operations in Afghanistan.
snip>

[global1]

4. How Is The Product Exported Out Of This Country?.....

Is it all out in the open or are their covert channels of distribution? Is the U.S. doing anything to stop the transport out of the country?

[shraby]

3. Exactly how "Poppy Bush" likes things.