According to the United Nations, Afghanistan is responsible for ninety percent of the world’s opium supply, despite improved eradication efforts. Opium cultivation has risen 7% in 2011 over last year and production has increased by 61%. Growers site economic hardship and high prices for opium crops as key reasons for growing poppy crops that eventually become opium.
Government attempts at eradication are seen as attacks on farmers livelihoods in the absence of a replacement crop that provides a similar revenue stream and has created a source of recruits for the Taliban. Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2011/1011/Afghanistan-still-world-s-top-opium-supplier-despite-10-years-of-US-led-war
No country wants to be known as a narcotic state, given all the problems opiates bring upon society, but without a meaningful alternative, what does the international community expect? In places like Afghanistan, survival is the name of the game, and if growing and cultivating opium will give you, as a peasant farmer the best chance to survive, why would you change?
This is a government issue, either search for meaningful crops that provide livelihoods or shut up about opium plants within your country. At the end of the day, its’ all about making a living and surviving.
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