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Article: After war, a deadly harvest. (growing opium in Afghanistan)
- Article from:
- U.S. News & World Report
- Article date:
- August 17, 1992
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1992 All rights reserved. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Opium poppies are again a bumper crop in Afghanistan
The Russians have gone and the fighting has slackened, but one facet of Afghanistan's 14 years of brutal war remains deeply ingrained in its ravaged landscape: opium, the lucrative, deadly crop that sustained the anti-Kabul resistance and now dominates the nation's economy.
Afghanistan has a long tradition of opium production. In the 1960s and 1970s it was a favorite stop for Western hippies in search of cheap drugs. But the opium industry boomed under mujeheddin protection and amid the social chaos of the 1980s. In the calmer post-war atmosphere, opium production is skyrocketing: in 1991, Afghanistan ...