DUSHANBE, March 4, Asia-Plus  -- An annual report of the United Nations office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) about world’s drug situation was presented by Azhar Rashid Khan, coordinator of the UNODC Strengthening of Control along the Tajik-Afghan Border Project, in headquarters of the Drug Control Agency (DCA) in Dushanbe today. 

According to him, opium cultivation in Afghanistan in 2008 will be similar to, or only slightly lower than last year''s harvest.   

  “Last year, 8,200 tons of opium were cultivated in Afghanistan, which is 34 percent more than in 2006 (6,100 tons),” Rashid Khan said, 

Moreover, according to an annual UN assessment, the amount of opium poppy cultivated in volatile southern and western parts of Afghanistan will increase this year.

In the meantime, UN experts do not rule out that a number of provinces to remain free of opium cultivation will probably increase in the northern and central parts of Afghanistan if planned eradication programs in safer parts of the country are carried out.  A lot depends on the success of the campaigns to eradicate the crops when they emerge in the spring.

UNODC based its findings on interviews in almost 500 villages.

UNODC report says Nimroz province, next to Helmand, is the greatest concern for 2008, with opium cultivation set to rise sharply.  Record-breaking Helmand will still produce around half the country''s opium, but cultivation is not expected to increase this year.  Kandahar and other southern provinces are also expected to increase their output.  But the eastern province of Nangarhar looks set to show a drop in the number of opium poppies grown - from having been one of the worst offenders last year.

Mr. Rashid Khan noted that the winter express-assessment contains information about stock of opium in Afghan villages.  Small amounts of opium have been a traditional form of saving in the Afghan countryside.  According to the winter survey, the amounts held by farmers in the north are now smaller than in the south.  Thus, an average stock of opium in the southern villages is 226 kilograms, while in the northern villages, an average stock of opium is one kilogram. 

The report also shows that, in addition to supplying 90% of world opium, Afghanistan has become the world''s biggest supplier of cannabis (estimated at 70,000 hectares this year).  It is exported mostly through the southern borders, Pakistan and Iran, and eventually into the Gulf countries. 

In the meantime, the DCA deputy director Vaysiddin Azamatov noted that 562 kilograms of drugs, with 109 kilograms of them being heroin, have been seized in Tajikistan over the first two months of this year.