Afghanistan , Opium: Facts and figures

22 January 2007 16:03

Opium dominates Afghanistan's economy: the illegal trade is worth $2.6bn a year, more than a third of the country's gross domestic product.

ORIGINS: A traditional crop for centuries in the mountainous border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the opium trade exploded during the 1980s, when it helped to finance the mujahedin war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

BLOWBACK: With heroin laboratories springing up on both sides of the border, gun violence, corruption and drug use has spread in Pakistan, which has some three million heroin addicts.

THE TALIBAN: After the Pakistan-sponsored Taliban swept to power in Afghanistan in 1996, it initially raised money by taxing opium production. But under UN pressure it finally cracked down, reducing the area under cultivation from 91,000 hectares in 1999 to only 8,000 in 2001, when it was ousted in the wake of 9/11 for hosting Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida.

EXPLOSION: Opium growing soared as soon as the Taliban fell, rising to 74,000 hectares in 2002. The head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime says it reached over 400,000 hectares last year, producing a record 6,100 tonnes of opium - 92 per cent of the world supply.

HELMAND: Afghanistan's largest province produces 40 per cent of its opium and half the heroin in Britain. The poppy-growing area grew 160 per cent in 2006.

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