Vienna: Afghanistan, the world's biggest
producer of opium, has also become a major source for
cannabis, overtaking Morocco as the top producer of hashish,
the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime said today.
"While other countries have even larger cannabis
cultivation, the astonishing yield of the Afghan cannabis crop
makes Afghanistan the world's biggest producer of hashish,"
UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in a
statement.
An UNODC survey estimated Afghanistan farmers produce 145
kilograms per hectare of hashish, the resin produced from
cannabis, as compared to around 40 kg/ha in Morocco, for an
overall amount of 1,500 to 3,500 tonnes a year.
It estimated that 10,000 to 24,000 hectares of cannabis
are grown in Afghanistan every year worth 39 to 94 million
dollars, which is still only 10 to 20 per cent of the value of
opium production to farmers.
Afghanistan's illicit drugs industry is worth up to three
billion dollars a year, controlled by militants and gangs who
use cross-border routes to smuggle drugs to Pakistan and Iran,
and bring arms and fighters back in.
Cannabis brought farmers a higher estimated net income
due to lower cultivation costs, some 3,341 dollars per hectare
compared to 2,005 dollars for opium, but its need for
irrigation and shorter shelf life limits its overall
attractiveness, the UNDOC survey found.
It found that like opium, cannabis was mostly being grown
in areas of instability in the south of the country, being
exported, and was a source of financing for insurgents
fighting the Afghan government and foreign troops.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, March 31, 2010, 16:25