LONDON, Nov 7: A glut of opium on the world market, fuelled by a record Afghan harvest, threatens a new heroin crisis in Britain, the European Union’s drug agency has warned.

According to a report in The Guardian on Friday (Record opium harvest in Afghanistan threatens new heroin crisis in Britain) the agency’s annual report also confirms that the UK remains at the top of the European league table of 27 countries for cocaine abuse for the fifth year in a row.

The warning from the European monitoring centre for drugs and drug abuse follows two record opium harvests in Afghanistan of 8,200 tonnes in 2007 and 7,700 tonnes this year. The harvests represent 90 per cent of the world’s illicit opium production with Helmand province, the centre of British military operations, accounting for over half the crop.

The EU agency says that “alternative development” measures to persuade farmers to switch to other crops are having a very limited impact. It says that in eastern Afghanistan, insecurity, lack of water, poor roads and increase in fuel costs have combined with declining prices for legal crops such as onions, which may make it difficult to sustain reductions in poppy cultivation.