A U.N. report highlights a twenty percent drop in opium production from last year’s record harvest. The Afghanistan Opium Survey equally shows a dramatic decrease in acres cultivated by drug farmers. As U.N. official Antonio Maria Costa stated, “Last year the world got hit by a heroin tsunami almost 700 tons...this year the opium flood waters have started to recede.”

In 2007 drugs worth US$4 billion represented half of Afghanistan’s GDP! The country has the dubious distinction of being the world’s largest opium producer followed by Burma.

A report issued by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, (UNODC) states that 18 of the Afghanistan’s 34 provinces are now opium free, up from 13 in 2007. Still as Costa concedes, “There is now a perfect overlap between zones of high risk and regions of high opium cultivation...since drugs are funding the insurgency, and insurgency enables drug cultivation, insurgency and narcotics must be fought together.” This remains a glaring given which many outside observers have missed as terrorism has spiked dramatically. An estimated US$100 million from the drug trade has gone into Taliban coffers.

Helmand province remains the nexus of narcotics production. As the U.N.’s Costa says, “If Helmand were a country, it would once again be the world’s largest producer of illicit drugs.” Interestingly Helmand is where most British military forces are based and remains the scene of an increasingly bitter conflict. The survey adds, “This geographical overlap between regions of opium and zones of insurgency shows the inextricable link between drugs and conflict.”

In recent weeks the Taliban have targeted troops from the multinational NATO contingents. Besides 33,000 American troops, mostly Marines, there are an additional 38,000 troops from more than a score of countries including Britain, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Poland. Recently, the Taliban attacked a French reconnaissance unit killing 10 paratroopers and wounding 21 in a day-long battle.

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