Die Zahl der Opfer, die Heroin aus Afghanistan jedes Jahr in Westeuropa umbringt, übersteigt nach UN-Angaben die Zahl aller in dem Land getöteten NATO-Soldaten.

20min.ch

The trend comes from neighbouring Nepal where parallels with Afghanistan are already frightening: corruption, lack of investment and poverty, with poppy fields completing the picture.

The Indian police regularly discover fields of opium poppies growing in the northern state of Bihar on the India-Nepal border where the illegal crop is giving the administration a headache. The state shares a long border with Nepal, one of the largest markets for opium. No wonder, then, that this area is popular with opium cultivators due to the lack of security and awareness among the local people.

rt.com

Meet Katrina Wade. After the Florida woman, 37, was arrested last month for drug trafficking, an acquaintance told cops that Wade was hiding up to 100 baggies of heroin inside her vagina. However, after a strip search failed to turn up any contraband--and a "body cavity search was denied by the jail"--Wade allegedly continued dealing behind bars, trading nickel bags fished from her vagina for commissary items like deodorant, hair grease, and a radio.

thesmokinggun.com

Improvements in poppy refinement by Mexican dealers have driven purity up and prices down. Heroin imported from Asia and the Middle East in the 1970s was around 5-percent pure; now federal agents report seizing drugs at purity levels of between 50 and 80 percent.

jointogether.org

8,8 Kilogramm Heroin im Straßenverkaufswert von 500.000 Euro haben Ermittler bei einer Hausdurchsuchung in Niederösterreich sichergestellt. Vier festgenommene Verdächtige sollen aber nicht nur mit Drogen gehandelt haben. Wie die Polizei am Samstag berichtete, stießen die Beamten auch auf 15 Nylontaschen mit gestohlener Markenbekleidung.

derstandard.at

Aziz Ahmad is a deeply worried man. With two wives and seven children at home, the 30-year-old farmer depends entirely on his opium-poppy crop to make a living.

This year, it's proving to be an increasingly difficult task. First, falling water tables stunted his crop. Then a mysterious blight emerged to destroy most of what remained.

speroforum.com

Reports of a "mysterious" fungus that has damaged opium poppy crops in Afghanistan have hit international headlines but on the ground the "mystery" is an open secret. Helmand farmers interviewed by BBC Pashto service for the early-morning news programme a couple of days ago were convinced that "they" had deliberately destroyed the crops.

The pronoun "they" is a euphemism for US secret agents, whom farmers suspect of having sprayed the crops with the fungus. Afghan farmers have been cultivating opium poppies for a considerable period of time. This allows them to distinguishing between natural causes and artificially induced problems.

guardian.co.uk
old zack [Mystery fungus smacks Afghan opium poppies]

Afghanistan's opium farmers are facing a lean harvest due to a mystery fungus which has seriously affected half of Papaver somniferum poppies in the country's Helmand and Kandahar provinces.

The infection "attacks the root of the plant, climbs up the stem and makes the opium capsule wither away", the BBC outlines. Some farmers suggest NATO troops have sprayed their crops with chemicals, but this was rejected by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) head Antonio Maria Costa.

theregister.co.uk