Afghans head for 'drug state'

2005-03-02 10:46

Vienna - Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan increased further in 2004, posing a threat to the country's stability, and has reared its head in Pakistan after a long absence, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) said on Wednesday.

"In Afghanistan opium poppy cultivation increased from 3 200 tonnes 2003 to 4 200 tonnes in 2004 to itself," the president of the INCB, Hamid Ghodse of Iran, told a press conference in Vienna as the agency released its report for 2004.

"This total comes close to the record of 4 600 tonnes registered in 1999 under the Taliban regime," he added, warning that the renewed increase put Afghanistan "on the road to becoming a major drug-trafficking state."

In its report, the INCB estimated that a third of the opium poppies harvested in Afghanistan last year passed through countries in the region, in particular Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.

"The large quantities of Afghan heroin transiting through Central Asia towards the Russian Federation and other countries in Europe is adding to the illicit drug problems in this sub-region," it remarked.

These problems included an increase in intravenous heroin use, which in turn contributed to the spread of HIV, the virus that causes Aids, in the region, notably in India and Nepal, it said.

The INCB said it noted with alarm that poppy cultivation returned last year to Pakistan, where authorities also confiscated acetic anhydride, a chemical used in the manufacture of heroin.

The good news was that the cultivation of opium poppies "reduced significantly" in 2004 in Myanmar and Laos, and Thailand ceased to be an important supplier of opium and heroin, the report said.

The INCB said it was also satisfied that the fight against the production of precursors, chemical compounds used in the manufacture of heroin and cocaine, had dropped.

- AFP