An Afghan man walks through a poppy field in the Nangharhar province of Afghanistan in 1999. That conflict, along with an ongoing civil war, destroyed Afghanistan's crop irrigation system. Because opium poppies require little water or maintenance and are in demand worldwide, many food-producing farmers turned to the drug trade. That shut down much of Afghanistan's already tenuous food supply chain. The footprints of the Afghan opium trade can be seen throughout Asia and Europe.
Drug addiction is a growing problem in Afghanistan, drug policy analysts say.
In neighboring Iran and Pakistan border jails are filled with drug smugglers, and officials are struggling to deal with an estimated 2.5 million addicts. In Germany, Great Britain and elsewhere in Europe, officials say Afghanistan is by far the leading source of heroin. The complexities of a drug war Because Afghanistan's opium trade is such a menace to its neighbors, some officials in Europe and western Asia are hoping that the U.S.-led war on terrorism takes down the Afghan drug trade along with the Taliban. A U.S. official who asked not to be identified said that given the opium trade's importance to those who support terrorism, American forces would be justified in spraying Afghan fields to kill opium poppies, and in destroying stockpiles of opium or processed heroin. Such spraying could be done in February, when the next crop of opium poppies begins to blossom.