Afghanistan is the number one producer of opium (the raw material for heroin), producing over 90 percent of the world total.[1] Gross revenue from drugs is equal to about 15 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
The opium business is booming in Afghanistan, despite a 12-year, $7.6 billion counternarcotics initiative by the U.S. Last year, Afghans devoted a record 209,000 hectares of land to opium poppy cultivation, and those crops produced drug profits 50 percent higher than in 2012. Those startling numbers come from a recent report by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). And they have led some to call for Washington to end its war on drugs in Afghanistan.