The battle to eradicate Afghanistan’s opium production.
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When British troops officially withdrew from Afghanistan, one big downer for some was that the fight to control the country’s opium production seemed to be over.
In 2014 a record 6,400 tonnes of opium was manufactured in the war-ravaged country.
Helmand, where British soldiers were based, is Afghanistan’s largest area for harvesting the drug.
Afghanistan produces 90 per cent of the world’s opium.
Even though the US has been battling to control production by eradicating poppy fields, it is having little effect on the industry.
America has spent £5billion on the problem, but in 2014 it managed to obliterate just 2,700 hectares – just one per cent of Afghanistan’s poppy fields.
When British troops first entered Helmand in 2006, it helped lead to a reduction in opium growing, with levels falling between 2008 and 2012.
However, an estimated 410,000 people are now employed in producing poppies – that’s more than the total members of Afghanistan’s armed forces.
It’s such a huge business poppy production counts for an estimated five per cent of the country’s GDP.
Approximately 13.5 million people in the world get high on opioids (opium-like substances), including 9.2 million who use heroin.
According to a 2014 report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), there were 31,000 new opioid users in Europe, with about 1.3 million problem users.
Heroin caused 6,100 overdose deaths in Europe in 2012, while cocaine overdose caused some 500 deaths.
In the first five months of 2014, anti-narcotics agents in New York City seized 288 pounds of heroin within the city.
The smack seized was worth about $40-$60million on the black market.
Opium production is now much higher than it was when the Taliban controlled Afghanistan, before coalition troops invaded in 2001 after 9/11.
There are tentative signs Afghanistan is fighting against such a major black market economy.
Its President, Ashraf Ghani, has arrested three judges accused of aiding the escape last June of drug overlord Haji Ishaqazi.
UN drugs official Andrey Avetisyan said, “President Ghani seems to be taking the opium problem seriously. We are quite optimistic.”
Almost all of the heroin that is taken on Britain’s streets comes from Afghan opium.
But maybe the biggest danger is that Taliban insurgents take profits from the trade.
This feeds the nation’s rampant corruption, ruining the ongoing battle to build a viable state.
And wasn’t that the point of the ‘war’?