The United National Office on Drugs and Crime said on Friday that revenue from opium production in Afghanistan rose 133 per cent in 2011. The total revenue retrieved last year from opium production was about $1.4 billion which is one tenth of the total Gross Domestic Product of the country, UN said.
Prices jumped dramatically because of the plant disease that wiped out much of the opium crop in 2010. Although yields returned to normal levels in 2011, prices remained high.
Afghanistan supplies 90 per cent of the world's opium despite the efforts of the government and its international allies to curb production.
The money earned from opium is reportedly used to provide weapons for krazed killers.