Afghan police and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) seized 9.2 mt of marijuana from a truck in the southern province of Zabul Province, the multi-national force said on Wednesday.In the largest known seizure of its kind, police recovered the drugs when they stopped the vehicle at a checkpoint on the Kandahar-Kabul road in Qalat city, the provincial capital of Zabul.
Opium cultivation rose by 59 percent this year in Afghanistan. The country produces more than 90 percent of the world's opium, with a record 165,000 ha under cultivation in 2006 compared to 104,000 in 2005, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Most of the opium produced in Afghanistan is smuggled via Central Asian countries to Russia and western Europe.
On Tuesday, local security forces, with the support of ISAF soldiers in the western province of Farah, seized more than 55 kg of opium from a car and detained the driver and a passenger.
UNODC estimated in 2005 that of the 920,000 drug users in Afghanistan, 520,000 of them were regular users of marijuana. The drug is also exported to neighbouring countries and contributes markedly to overall narcotics production in Afghanistan.
Opium, heroin and marijuana production remain integral to Afghanistan's economy. Some 2.9 million people are involved in growing opium, representing 12.6 percent of the total population. Revenue from this year's harvest is predicted to top US $3 billion, according to UNODC figures.
Tackling the country's burgeoning narcotics problem requires ongoing commitment from the international community, NATO officials said.
"This is a long-term problem which fuels corruption, finances insurgency and undermines law and order. Solving it cannot be done by military means alone, but dealing with it is essential," Mark Laity, a spokesman of NATO, told IRIN in Kabul.
Analysts say the involvement of some high-ranking government officials and regional warlords in the illicit drug trade has undermined ongoing efforts to rebuild the war-ravaged country.
"The involvement of many government officials at every level is distorting the very fabric of the state and feeding local disillusionment," Joanna Nathan, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group (ICG) in Afghanistan, maintained.
In 2005, Afghan security forces seized approximately 150 mt of opium and 35 mt of heroin, shut down 247 clandestine drug processing plants and arrested or detained 50 traffickers, officials said.