Can you spell "Agent Orange"?
From an AP report via Yahoo!:
The highest global production of opium resin, before 2006, occurred in 1999 (5,764 tons.) The Taliban had practically eliminated opium production in Afghanistan by 2001, when we invaded and occupied the country. The area under poppy cultivation in Afghanistan was 323,700 acres in 2004 and 257,000 acres in 2005. Worldwide consumption of heroin was estimated to have been 450 tons in 2005, 90% of it supplied from Afghanistan.
Last year, Afghanistan's output of opium resin was about 4,100 tons, estimated to produce about 410 tons of heroin. The latest U.N. report estimates that this year, Afghans devoted about 407,700 acres to poppies this year, with an estimated opium resin yield of 6,100 tons, enough to make 610 tons of heroin. The U.N. estimates that this production from Afghanistan alone exceeds total global demand for heroin this year by about 30%.
Antonio Maria Costa, chief of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, said
This is very bad.
Oh, really? Yes, really.
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