Afghanistan's poppy harvest is expected to top all records this year as the country spirals deeper into a vicious circle of drugs, corruption and insecurity. A United Nations report due on Monday will announce that Afghanistan is now producing nearly 95 per cent of the world’s opium, up from 92 per cent in 2006, officials and diplomats say.This marks the sixth straight year of rises since US-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in 2001 — despite hundreds of millions of dollars pumped into programmes to halt cultivation, processing and trafficking of the drug.“It is a very bad situation definitely, and the government has not been able to deal with it in the right way, otherwise it should have at least been stabilised or contained,” said Christina Oguz, the head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Afghanistan. “The same goes for the international community.”Afghanistan is locked in a vicious circle in which drug money corrupts government and helps fund the Taliban insurgency. That weakens state control over parts of the country, which in turn leads to more insecurity and more drug production.The scale of the problem is huge. Opium and the heroin made from it are estimated to be worth some $3 billion to the Afghan economy, about a third of its gross domestic product.Security is key. The Taliban managed to drastically reduce the 2001 poppy crop as they held most of the country firmly under their control and implemented strict punishments for offenders. Now, some 70 percent of opium production comes from provinces in the south where the Taliban insurgency is strongest.People who have seen the UNODC and Afghan Counter-Narcotics Ministry report say one of the few bright spots in it is the rise in opium-free provinces from six last year to around 10 in 2007 — all in the north where security is best. Both traffickers and the Taliban have a common interest in instability and lawlessness, Afghan and foreign officials say.“Traffickers are equipping and providing funds for terrorist organisations that are responsible for many attacks in Kabul, other parts of the country and other parts of the world,” said Counter-Narcotics Ministry spokes-man Zalmay Afzaly.Insecurity also leads farmers to plant poppy, as fighting may prevent them from getting perishable crops to market.
