Word: opiumeators
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...change in tactics and command (McChrystal was brought in to replace Army General David McKiernan, who had led ISAF since June 2008) was necessitated by a grim truth. The war in Afghanistan is not going well. The Taliban, funded in large measure by the opium trade, which is centered in Helmand, now controls wide swaths of Afghanistan. Over the past four months, a recent U.N. report says, the number of "assassinations, abductions, incidents of intimidation and the direct targeting of aid workers" has been higher than last year. Increasing numbers of foreign fighters - "most likely affiliated with al-Qaeda...
...often cultivated in small plots by users themselves ... For most synthetic drugs, the skills needed to access and process the needed chemicals are not widely spread and, consequently, the market tends to favor more organized groups ... In contrast, most of the cultivation of drug crops like coca and opium poppy is confined to small areas within two or three countries. Most of the world's heroin supply is produced on a land area about the size of Greater London...
...consumption patterns are in flux. This may explain the gruesome upsurge of violence in countries like Mexico ... While 41 % of the world's cocaine is being seized (mostly in Colombia), only one-fifth (19%) of all opiates are being intercepted ... In 2007, Iran seized 84% of the world's opium and 28% of all heroin...
...Lowdown: "It all started in Shanghai in 1909," the authors note of the dawn of narcotics regulation. And what a century it's been. What began as an opium epidemic in China has since become a global problem that includes heroin, cocaine, marijuana, amphetamines and a host of other illicit substances that compose a $320 billion-a-year industry, making drugs one of the most valuable commodities in the world. But despite arguments that legalizing drugs would destroy the organized-crime rings that currently control the market, the report argues that "mafia coffers are equally nourished by the trafficking...
...Uzbek, Tajik and Kyrgyz borders, and is home to the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a State Department listed terror organization. Militants are known to slip easily across the porous 1,300 km boundary between Tajikistan and Afghanistan, which is also a chief thoroughfare for Afghan opium into the markets of the West. According to Pakistani media, the IMU has helped contribute some 4,000 Uzbek and Tajik fighters to the Taliban forces warring with Islamabad...