HUMAN WRONGS WATCH

Human Wrongs Watch

Afghanistan provides 90 per cent of the world’s opium, most of which is shipped through Iran and Pakistan, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reports.

*Photo: Todd Huffman | Wikimedia Commons

According to the UNODC Opium Survey 2011, released last month, despite increased efforts to combat poppy harvests, “rising prices and growing demand boosted cultivation by seven per cent in 2010, spreading to new regions of Afghanistan.”

“Drugs pose a threat to the health and security of not only Afghanistan, but Iran and Pakistan as well, and many other countries beyond,” its adds. Since 2007, the three countries have been involved in the UNODC-sponsored Triangular Initiative to coordinate their efforts to combat trafficking.