TASHKENT, June 26 (RIA Novosti) - Afghan farmers earned around $1 billion from growing heroin last year, a head of a UN agency's regional office said on Thursday.
A representative of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), James Callahan, said over 500,000 families in the country which has a total population of 3.3 million are involved in opium production.
Since the Taliban regime was overthrown in the 2001 U.S.-led campaign, Afghanistan, with almost all its arable land being sown with poppy, is the world's leading producer of heroin.
Afghanistan's opium production increased from 6,100 tons in 2006 to 8,200 tons in 2007, according to the UN agency. The narcotics trade has become an acute problem for the Central Asian republics due to a continual flow of illegal drugs from Afghanistan.
