Even Opium-Poppy Farmers Are Feeling the Squeeze
Times is tough all over, pal:
Afghan farmers, who produce more than 90 percent of the opium used to make the world's heroin, slashed poppy cultivation by a fifth after prices plunged to 2001 levels while narco-cartels increased their strength and influence in the country, a United Nations study shows.
Opium-poppy cultivation fell 22 percent to 123,000 hectares (303,810 acres) as average farm-gate prices for dry opium dropped 34 percent to $64 a kilogram (2.2 pounds), the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said in a report. The 2009 harvest yielded up to 6,900 metric tons (7,605 tons), enough to make about 1,000 metric tons of heroin, the Vienna-based UNODC said.
Meanwhile, at the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan:
Secretary of State Clinton ordered an investigation on Tuesday into the Animal House revels of private guards at the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan—including booze, hookers and other "deviant behavior."