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Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of opium, an essential ingredient of heroin. The vast majority of Afghan/Pakistan-refined heroin is sold in Western Europe and Great Britain to feed their growing number of heroin addicts. Only between 5 percent and 15 percent reaches the U.S. The production is so immense that it has even affected Afghan food supplies. According to the International Monetary Fund, opium production is worth $1 billion to Afghan farmers. A whopping 12 percent of the Afghan population is involved in opium production. Opium continues to be the major source of funding for militants in the Northwest...

LANCASTER [California]- The flash of a smile, a flash of steel, a flash of skirt and a flash in the pan (actually a levitating table) got things started at Wednesday morning's press conference at City Hall to announce details of the 2008 California Poppy Festival. The annual event will take place Saturday and Sunday, April 19 and 20, at City Park, 43011 10th St. West. Mayor Henry Hearns smiled as he introduced Japanese swordsmen Michael Kazmer and Buddy Merritt of Araki Mujinsai Ryu Laido, who will perform at the festival. .... The swordsmen were followed by salsa dancers Zuly Zappala...

Southern provinces are the source of most Afghan poppy production Opium poppy production in Afghanistan reached another record high last year and Kabul must do more to stop it, a US State Department report says.The report says that the poppy cultivation helps Taleban insurgents obtain money and weapons. The drug trade hinders progress towards economic stability and democracy, the report adds. Afghanistan grows nearly all of the world's opium poppy crop in an illegal trade worth billions of dollars. "Eliminating narcotics cultivation and trafficking in Afghanistan will require a long-term national and international commitment," said the State Department. "The...

It is this reporter's opinion that the Bush administration has decided not to destroy the opium crop in Afghanistan even though the president previously linked the Afghan drug trade directly to terrorism. Meanwhile, the Afghan opium poppy cultivation has exploded to a record high. The multibillion dollar trade, fueled by Taliban militants and corrupt officials in the Afghan Karzai government, is running rampant. Opium grows on 477,000 acres of land in Afghanistan. That’s a 17 percent increase over last year’s acreage. Afghanistan now accounts for 93 percent of the global production of opium which provides the raw material for heroin....

I've heard the question asked repeatedly. How is Al Qaeda, which is supposedly relegated to living in caves in stone-age conditions able to create state of the art video documentaries that rival those produced by TV networks and news channels? In other words, where is the money coming from? In the past much of the seed money used to finance Bin Laden's operations came from his personal fortune. But with all of the money controls slammed into place six years ago after the 9/11 attacks, that money has been for all intents and purposes untouchable. Yet this year Al Qaeda's...

NEW YORK: The United Nations is to release figures for drug production in Afghanistan that will show another reverse for the British-led effort to control the drug trade. The Daily Telegraph understands that annual production is expected to have risen by 18 per cent to about 7,200 tons - the sixth consecutive rise since 2001. That compares to 6,100 tons last year and 4,200 in 2004 and the increase includes another surge in production in Helmand province, which now produces more than half of the total opium for the country. The New York Times reported that production in Helmand, which...

WASHINGTON, June 14, 2007 – A top priority for U.S. government officials working in Afghanistan is eradicating poppy plants and creating alternative livelihoods for farmers, a Defense Department counternarcotics official said today. Richard Douglas, deputy assistant secretary of defense for counternarcotics, counterproliferation and global threats, spoke to military analysts in a teleconference from Kabul, Afghanistan. He said the Defense Department is working with U.S. Central Command, the U.S. State Department, and the British government to combat the narcotics problem in Afghanistan. “It’s Afghanistan’s future and their fight, but we do what we can to support the combatant commander as well...

Afghanistan's 2007 opium poppy cultivation could expand again after last year's record crop, the U.N. drug agency said Monday, underlining the weakness of an international-backed drive against the country's booming narcotics trade. The world body's Office on Drugs and Crime predicted an increase in a string of provinces, including southern Helmand — Afghanistan's largest poppy-growing region and an area wracked by growing Taliban attacks. In a report released Monday, the office said a recent U.N. survey found growing evidence that the drug trade flourished in regions with poor security. "This winter survey suggests that opium cultivation in Afghanistan in 2007...

2006 Service of Rememberance 11-11-06

AS if there hadn’t been enough bad news from Afghanistan of late, now the country’s drug dependency is back in the headlines. On Sept. 2, the head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported that the shattered country is now producing 92 percent of the world’s supply of illegal opium, up from 87 percent in 2004. This deplorable new record will not be reversed by more belligerent counternarcotics measures. Instead, America, NATO and the Afghan government must reform a vital but neglected institution: the local police. In 2004, for the first time in history, farmers in every...

THE WASHINGTON TIMES President Bush yesterday urged Afghan President Hamid Karzai to eliminate his country's heroin trade, while Mr. Karzai said he was "sad" that U.S. troops had abused Afghan prisoners. Despite these points of friction, the two leaders signed an agreement to increase cooperation on security, political and economic issues. The agreement, among other things, called for ending production of poppies in Afghanistan, the world's leading producer of the raw material that is refined into heroin for the streets of the United States.

WASHINGTON, May 21 - United States officials warned this month in an internal memo that an American-financed poppy eradication program aimed at curtailing Afghanistan's huge heroin trade had been ineffective, in part because President Hamid Karzai "has been unwilling to assert strong leadership." A cable sent on May 13 from the United States Embassy in Kabul, the Afghan capital, said that provincial officials and village elders had impeded destruction of significant poppy acreage and that top Afghan officials, including Mr. Karzai, had done little to overcome that resistance. "Although President Karzai has been well aware of the difficulty in trying...

Abdul Watengul stopped growing poppies and now prunes olive trees for $3 a day.The opium market is a dusty trail of boarded-up stores and locked doors. Hundreds of men sit nearby.Last year, Afghanistan cultivated a record 800 square miles, more than three times as much as the year before, yielding nearly 90 percent of the world's opium/heroin.This year President Hamid Karzai declared a holy war on poppies. A Counternarcotics Ministry was created. The government said poppy production has fallen in 29 of 34 provinces.Last year, farmers here grew poppies on 109 square miles, but this year, only 31 square miles,...

Afghanistan's Opium Poppy Acreage Triples Since 2003 WASHINGTON - More than three years after a pro-U.S. government was installed, Afghanistan has been unable to contain opium poppy production and is ``on the verge of becoming a narcotics state,'' a presidential report said Friday. The report said the area in Afghanistan devoted to poppy cultivation last year set a new record of 206,700 hectares, more than triple the figure for 2003. The Afghan narcotics situation ``represents an enormous threat to world stability,'' the report said. Opium poppy is the raw material for heroin. The massive study, covering the illicit narcotics situation...

An Austrian driver has lost his license because he failed a drug test after eating a dish containing poppyseeds. Wolfgang L, 39, had his license withdrawn when a test showed traces of morphine in his urine. But he denies drug abuse, saying he had recently eaten mohnnudeln, an Austrian speciality consisting of noodles, poppyseeds and fruit. Reinhard Fous, head police doctor in Vienna, told the Kronenzeitung the man 'wasn't under the influence of drugs' since his blood test came back negative. Yet, the traces of morphine in his urine showed he wasn't fit to drive, the doctor argued. But fellow...

President Bush traveled to Nashville, Tennessee today, to address the American Legion National Convention at the Opryland Hotel, accompanied by Senator John McCain, and visited base personnel from the Tennessee Air National Guard. He then traveled to Iowa to speak at the annual Farm Progress Show in Alleman, and spoke with Rush Limbaugh from Des Moines at 2:35 EDT, giving a very warm and strong interview with Rush. He said he was going to Gettysburg this evening to introduce First Lady Laura at the Republican National Convention. It’s a GOOD time to be a Bushbot! Enjoy your trip to Sanity...

Leaving my local Wal Mart today, I noticed a WWII veteran outside. He was selling "Poppies". He was also being ignored by most shoppers. He was about 80 years young, and wearing his VFW cap. As I approached the exit, I took my wallet out of my pocket, and gave him a donation. He seemed surprised that SOMEONE had even acknowledged him being there. He handed me my "poppy", and I extended my hand, and said to him "Thank You for serving". He stiffened, and his chest swelled with pride. He said "God bless our Military fighting terrorism". I agreed,...

<p>Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network has become deeply involved in international drug trafficking, using the money to buy arms and, possibly, radioactive material for use in a so-called "dirty" nuclear bomb, senior U.S. officials say.</p> <p>The seizure earlier this month of boats carrying heroin and hashish, and operated by al Qaeda-linked persons, has brought to light an al Qaeda drug operation that has grown tremendously since the September 11 attacks, the sources say.</p>

U.S. sees poppy growing double in Afghanistan WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 — Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan doubled between 2002 and 2003 to a level 36 times higher than in the last year of rule by the Taliban, according to White House figures released on Friday. The area planted with poppies, used to make heroin and morphine, was 152,000 acres (61,000 hectares) in 2003, compared with 76,900 acres (30,700 hectares) in 2002 and 4,210 acres (1,685 hectares) in 2001, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said in a statement. The Taliban was cracking down on poppy production in the...

Government ministers from more than 50 countries are meeting in Paris for a two-day conference aimed at combating the trade in heroin and other poppy derivatives from Afghanistan. Production has surged since the end of the Taleban regime Afghanistan has seen a big increase in poppy cultivation since the fall of the Taleban at the end of 2001, and experts say it will be many years before production can be brought down. The task of the conference is to focus more on the supply routes and importing countries, to work out ways of stopping smuggling and suppressing demand. Delegates will...