Opium cultivation at highest level since 1998: UN

Opium poppy cultivation worldwide has reached its highest level in 16 years with number-one producer Afghanistan growing record amounts despite year-long Western efforts to eradicate the crop, the United Nations (UN) said today.
The area used by farmers in war-torn Afghanistan to cultivate opium poppy, the plant behind the most drug-related deaths worldwide increased last year by 36 per cent, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in its annual drugs report.
Myanmar, which together with Afghanistan produces 90 per cent of the world's opium poppy, also saw the cultivated area increase by 13.5 per cent.
As a result, global poppy cultivation spread to 296,720 hectares (733,210 acres), "the largest area since 1998, when estimates became available," the UN agency said.

This comes despite years of Western-backed efforts to eradicate opium production in Afghanistan, where it is a key contributor to the economy.
With US-led NATO troops set to leave by the end of the year however, Afghan farmers have starting growing poppy again as a sort of insurance policy amid fears the country could now sink back into chaos, according to local officials.

For the UNODC, the hike in production was especially worrying as drugs like opium and heroin, produced from poppy, "cause the most burden of disease and drug-related deaths worldwide."
UNODC chief Yury Fedotov admitted today that the surge in Afghanistan was a "setback", as heroin production has also returned to the high levels seen in 2008 and 2011.

Cocaine cultivation on the other hand, which is mainly based in South America, is at its lowest since 1990, the UN agency said.
"There continues to be a gap in service provision... Only one in six problem drug users globally have had access to or received drug dependence treatment services each year," the report noted.
It also urged further efforts to prevent the spread of HIV through shared syringes and needles, a practice that is especially common in southwest Asia and eastern Europe.
Although interventions in western countries have worked in the past, "recent outbreaks of HIV among people who inject drugs in parts of Europe demonstrate how the HIV epidemic situation can change very rapidly in areas where services and interventions are scaled down," it warned.