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Opium production in Afghanistan

An Afghan policeman destroys poppies during a campaign against narcotics in Jalalabad province, Afghanistan, April 4, 2017.

US airstrikes in Afghanistan are targeting drug labs that fund the Taliban

Conflict

The operation came days after a UN report showed opium production in Afghanistan — a key source of funding for the Taliban’s 16-year insurgency — soared 87 percent this year as the area under poppy cultivation hit a record high.

The World

US and Russia collaborate on drug raids in Afghanistan

Afghan Opium

The World

Afghan poppy fields hit by disease

Environment
The World

The Pentagon turns a blind eye to Afghanistan’s poppy fields

Global Politics
The World

Afghan farmers and the opium trade

Environment

The World’s Quil Lawrence reports on efforts to help struggling Afghan farmers replace the profitable opium poppy crops with wheat.

The World

Afghanistan’s drug problem

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Thomas Schweich, a former US anti-narcotics official, who says a mixture of Western obstruction and Afghan corruption has allowed the Taliban to secure support and funding from Afghanistan’s growing poppy trade.

The World

Drug use on the rise in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is a major supplier of the raw material for heroin but some of the drug is being consumed at home, and now Afghanistan is struggling with a growing addiction problem, as The World’s Quil Lawrence reports from Kabul.

The World

Afghanistan’s illegal poppy trade

Global Politics

Lisa Mullins speaks with Lutfallah Mashal, Governor of Afghanistan’s Laghman Province, about the challenges posed by the illegal poppy trade there.