In this Thursday, May 17, 2007 file photo, an Afghan boy collects resin from poppies in an opium poppy field in the Khogyani district of the Nangarhar province, east of Kabul, Afghanistan. Buoyed by several years of record oil revenues in the Gulf, plus the booming drug trade in Afghanistan, al-Qaida and other Islamic terrorist groups are thought to have access to strong potential funding sources - and thus might dodge fallout from the global banking crunch that has devastated many countries and citizens. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)US, UN Differ On Afghan Opium Ebb -- Yahoo News/AP
WASHINGTON – U.S. and U.N. experts agree that Afghanistan will harvest fewer poppy plants bound for the drug trade in 2008 after two years of record crops. But they have radically different estimates about what that decline will mean for opium production.
In a report obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its planned release Friday, the Bush administration claims that production of the heroin precursor will plunge by 31 percent, from 8,800 tons in 2007 to 6,100 tons this year. That's more than five times the drop in production predicted by the United Nations in late August.
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy maintains its estimate is accurate. Director John Walters says the U.N. report may contain "methodological anomalies" related to on-the-ground surveys of poppy fields and stocks and not factor the effect of poor weather into its production estimate.
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My Comment: The production "may" be done a bit .... but it is still huge.