New York Times: The White House says it believes that Ahmed Wali Karzai is involved in drug trafficking, and American officials have repeatedly warned President Karzai that his brother is a political liability, two senior Bush administration officials said in interviews last week. Neither the Drug Enforcement Administration, which conducts counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan, nor the fledgling Afghan anti-drug agency has pursued investigations into the accusations against the president’s brother.      more...

PAN (Translated by RAWA): Head of the attorney of Kunduz claims that drug-trafficking is taking place in Sher Khan Bandar (Port) but it's not being stopped, but the authorities of Sher Khan Bandar deny the claims. Hafizullah Khaliqyar, the head of the attorney of Kunduz told PAN in an interview that alcoholic drinks are imported into Afghanistan from Tajikistan and drugs (heroin and opium) are smuggled by Afghanistan into Tajikistan.      more...

The Frontier Post: In the contemporary time, Afghanistan is under the grip of chaos, anarchy and became a home base for terrorism. It seems that the land is without state, society and system and has been converted into "failed state" because of chronic un-ended war imposed by the United States.      more...

Quqnoos: The deputy head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Dr Abdullah, told parliament on Tuesday that a "number of delegates" in Parliament "supported drug traffickers and terrorists", our political correspondent said.      more...

The Chicago Tribune: In a country plagued by war and Islamic militants, by one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world, by malnutrition and starvation and even by locusts, AIDS has arrived. So far the Afghan government has officially identified only 435 cases of HIV — a small number, considering how many there are in neighboring countries—but international and Afghan health experts say there are likely thousands in Afghanistan.      more...

Telegraph.co.uk: Thomas Schweich, who served as the State Department's most senior anti-drugs in official in Afghanistan until last month, said that Mr Karzai's overriding concern was to hold power. This had led him to protect 20 government officials, all linked to drug trafficking.      more...

IWPR: Remote Afghan province is home to major trading post for heroin destined for Europe and arms for Taliban and other militants. In the middle of the river, local mafiosi cut deals that will arm Taleban insurgents in southern Afghanistan, as well as al-Qaeda and other militant groups in the wider region. In return for Russian-made weapons, they trade Afghan heroin that will eventually be sold on the streets of European cities. The major profits go to those with the clout to call on adequate protection. “The big smugglers are backed by governments in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia,” he said. “These smugglers can pay huge amounts of money. But we don’t do badly.”      more...

The Washington Post: Afghan opium poppy cultivation grew 17 percent last year, continuing a six-year expansion of the country's drug trade and increasing its share of global opium production to more than 92 percent, according to the 2008 World Drug Report, released Thursday by the United Nations. Afghanistan's emergence as the world's largest supplier of opium and heroin represents a serious setback to U.S. policy in the region. The opium trade has soared since the U.S.-led 2001 overthrow of the Taliban, which had eradicated almost all of the country's opium poppies.      more...

Toronto Star: There's a lot we know about Afghanistan and a lot more we don't. An expert who knows much more than most of us – whose prescient insights I have benefited from for a decade and whom the John Manley commission consulted last year – says Afghanistan will get worse in the coming months.      more...

The Telegraph: In a confidential Government paper seen by the Daily Telegraph, diplomats warn Mr Brown that the growing Afghan opium trade will prolong the Taliban insurgency and say the Kabul government's failure to tackle corruption is fuelling popular resentment. In a briefing paper for the Prime Minister marked "Confidential," UK diplomats say that Mr Karzai is refusing to taken on the drug lords and has allowed major players in the Afghan opium trade to take up senior government posts.      more...

On Line Opinion: The Afghan occupation is in its seventh year, and resistance to the occupation has not abated. According to the US National Intelligence director the US puppet regime of Hamid Karzai exerts control over no more than 30 per cent of the country. The situation for women has not improved since the US led invasion, in fact quite the contrary.      more...

VOA: Afghanistan supplies virtually all of the world's illegal opium. Last year, the country's drug trade was a $4 billion business, half of which alone was produced in the south where the fighting against the Taliban insurgency is the fiercest. Getting Afghanistan to rid itself of poppy is a pillar of U.S. policy there, because the Taliban use profits from opium as a revenue source.      more...

Reuters: The prevalence of HIV is low in Afghanistan, but the potential risk factors for the spread of the disease remain high, the Public Health Ministry said on Monday. "But ... war, poverty, illiteracy, massive international and external displacement, the high level of poppy cultivation, drug trafficking and usage, the existence of commercial and unsafe sex, unsafe injection practices and blood transfusion are potential risk factors for its spread," the ministry said.      more...

The Observer: Afghanistan, struggling with a huge indigenous drug problem, has a new crisis. Its drug treatment centres - particularly in the capital, Kabul - are being inundated by heroin-addicted former refugees, many forcibly expelled from neighbouring Iran and Pakistan. 'The biggest problem now is the returning addicts. It is a tsunami coming to this country,' Suliman said.      more...

Toronto Star: Not a single authority in the nation, right up into the president's office, has the clout to oppose a powerful alignment of forces that are a law unto themselves: Warlords, ministers, parliamentarians, the military, police, tribal elders and wealthy entrepreneurs who are making a killing in the free-for-all of multi-billion-dollar international aid, a tsunami of cash that has made tycoons out of two-bit larcenists and filchers.      more...

Reuters: Scarred by decades of turmoil and grief, 66 per cent of Afghans suffer from depression or some form of mental disorder, and an increasing number are turning to illegal drugs, a top health official said.      more...

Middle East Times: During the previous year, an estimated 434,000 Afghans used hashish, 130,000 used opium and 41,000 used heroin, according to the UNODC. Some agencies report higher numbers, but this may be due to their failure to adjust the population base. While the population of Afghanistan is officially listed as 31.8 million, the UNODC figures are based on the figure of 23.8 million people who currently live in Afghanistan. The other 8 million, including refugees in Pakistan and Iran, live outside of Afghanistan.      more...

Reuters: Scarred by decades of turmoil and grief, 66 percent of Afghans suffer from depression or some form of mental disorder, and an increasing number are turning to illegal drugs, a top health official said.      more...

IRIN News: Afghanistan would have great potential to ensure food security for its estimated 26.6 million people if donors invested in agricultural infrastructure and/or if the country's over 190,000 hectares of poppy were converted to wheat production, a senior official of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.      more...

Feministe.us: It’s like a perfect storm of right-wing policies: The War on Drugs, women’s liberation by way of imperialism, and “freedom” at the barrel of a gun. The vast majority of the world’s opiates originate in Afghanistan. To fight drug production, the solution has been to target individual farmers and destroy their crops — without offering them any other option for survival.      more...

The Washington Post: More than six years after U.S.-led forces launched a military campaign here against the ruling Taliban movement, drug addiction is fast becoming a major concern for the government. With opium production reaching an all-time high of 6,000 tons last year, according to the United Nations, domestic addiction rates in this nation of nearly 32 million have also soared. A 2005 U.N. report estimated that Afghanistan was home to about 1 million drug abusers.      more...

NDTV: Termed as "opium brides", the daughters of poor poppy farmers are often given to drug traffickers if their fathers are unable to pay the loan taken for growing the illicit crop because of the official action.      more...

Chicago Tribune: The homes in the fancy Shirpoor neighborhood are a child's fantasy of mirrored columns, rainbow-colored tiles, green glass, imposing arches and high gates. They also are evidence of what has gone wrong with Afghanistan, almost seven years after the Taliban was chased from power into the mountains.      more...

Green Left Weekly: It has to be one of the most unbelievable stories of the century: New Idea, a magazine that trades on gossip about royals and other celebrities, is blamed for exposing Prince Harry’s deployment in the British military intervention in Afghanistan. It is about as believable as the plot of Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper, in which a young prince swaps places with a street lad to see what life is like in “Paupersville”.      more...

The Financial Times: The UN International Narcotics Control Board says the rise in Afghanistan's opium cultivation is "alarming" and that its effects - including an increase in organised crime, corruption and the incidence of drug use - are spilling over into Iran, Pakistan and the central Asian republics.      more...

The Times: On the outskirts of Kabul stands probably the nicest prison wing between Warsaw and Tokyo — complete with security cameras, electronic locks, shaded visiting areas and UN-approved levels of natural light.      more...

Sott.net: Russian state-controlled Channel One TV has broadcast a report containing allegations that US forces are involved in drug-trafficking from Afghanistan to Europe. It also highlighted the problem of drug abuse in the British army.      more...

The Independent: The cultivation of opium poppies whose product is turned into heroin is spreading rapidly across Iraq as farmers find they can no longer make a living through growing traditional crops.      more...

The Associated Press: Farida’s son inherited her drug addiction in the womb, and drank her opium-laced breast milk. And when he cried and fussed, she calmed him with specks of opium diluted in tea. This is the hidden face of addiction in Afghanistan — parents spreading drug use in the confines of their homes. All four of Farida’s children got high from her husband’s secondhand heroin smoke and from the opium she fed them.      more...

AFP: Afghanistan's opium production was likely to boom in 2008, the top NATO commander said Wednesday, and predicted continued Taliban-led violence, which he linked to the illicit drug trade.      more...

The Times: "The British public would be up in arms if they knew that the district appointments in the south for which British soldiers are dying are there just to protect drug routes," said one analyst. Western and Afghan officials are also alarmed at how narco-kleptocracy has extended its grip around President Karzai, a figure regarded by some as increasingly isolated by a cadre of corrupt officials.      more...

IWPR: Helmand's farmers are chopping down their pomegranate trees for the more lucrative opium plants, while blaming the government for failing to help them. The beautiful red flowers of the pomegranate tree used to cover Helmand, a province which was famous for the luscious red fruit. But these days a different sort of flower blooms, as more and more of Helmand's sandy soil is given over to the opium poppy.      more...

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC): In its final Afghan Opium Survey for 2007 issued today, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) shows that opium is now equivalent to more than half (53%) of the country's licit GDP. Speaking at a conference in Brussels on the future of Afghanistan, hosted by Princeton University, the Executive Director of UNODC, Antonio Maria Costa, announced that the total export value of opiates produced in and trafficked from Afghanistan in 2007 is about $4 billion, a 29 per cent increase over 2006.      more...

The New York Times: Amid the multiplying frustrations of the fight against narcotics in Afghanistan, the northern province of Balkh has been hailed as a rare and glowing success. Two years ago the province, which abuts Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, was covered with opium poppies — about 27,000 acres of them, nearly enough to blanket Manhattan twice. This year, after an intense anti-poppy campaign led by the governor, Balkh's farmers abandoned the crop. The province was declared poppy free, with 12 others, and the provincial government was promised a reward of millions of dollars in development aid.      more...

Pajhwok Afghan News: The burgeoning drug commerce would be hard to rein in if high-ranking government officials involved in narcotics smuggling were not prosecuted, a senior official warned on Thursday. First Vice-President Ahmad Zia Masood, addressing a ceremony that marked the opening of a Counter-Narcotics Police complex, said: We should admit that some top-ranking government officials are unfortunately linked to the smuggling of drugs.      more...

Council on Foreign Relations: This yearly document reported that opium production in Afghanistan increased 17% in 2007. The executive summary said that "in 2007, Afghanistan cultivated 193,000 hectares of opium poppies, an increase of 17% over last year. The amount of Afghan land used for opium is now larger than the corresponding total for coca cultivation in Latin America (Colombia, Peru and Bolivia combined)      more...

The Guardian: Fighting sleaze is no easy task in a country like Afghanistan, as anti-corruption tsar Izzatullah Wasifi can testify. The economy is awash with opium money, and bribery and backhanders are rife, as confirmed by yesterday's alarming UN report.      more...

The Globe and Mail: The Afghan government and its international backers must do much more to curb the "disastrous" record drug crop, which is like a cancer threatening the survival of the country, the United Nations' drugs control chief said.      more...

Pajhwok Afghan News: In last four years, more than one hundred thousand drug smugglers were identified in the country but only four of them were booked and arrested as drug producers and traffickers.      more...

Associated Press: Afghanistan will produce another record poppy harvest this year that cements its status as the world's near-sole supplier of the heroin source, yet a furious debate over how to reverse the trend is stalling proposals to cut the crop, U.S. officials say.      more...