Afghanistan's opium production doubles in two years

Afghanistan's opium production has doubled in two years, reaching a new high in 2007, with the country almost the exclusive supplier of the world's deadliest drug, the United Nations announced.

Production was estimated to have jumped 34 percent this year over last with the number of heroin labs also increasing.

The southern province of Helmand had meanwhile become the world's biggest source of illicit drugs, surpassing the output of entire countries. The amount of Afghan land used for growing opium was now larger than the combined total used to grow coca -- the raw ingredient for cocaine -- in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, it said.

This was despite a multi-million-dollar effort led by Britain and the United States to cut the opium trade. The gross income from a hectare of opium was 4,600 dollars, compared to 530 dollars for wheat, it said.

Afghanistan had become "practically the exclusive supplier of the world's deadliest drug", accounting for 93 percent of the global opiates market, the survey said.

[Excerpt of an article by Bronwen Roberts, AFP]