RAWALPINDI, March 1: The illicit cultivation of opium poppy in Pakistan is again on the increase, although it has not reached the level of 10,000 acres as in the early 1990s, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) said in its annual report released on Thursday.

The report noted that the government was making efforts to eradicate the poppy cultivation in Balochistan. However, it urged the government to continue the efforts both at national and provincial levels to achieve the desire result.

The report reveals that a new trend is the smuggling of heroin from Pakistan to China and says “there is information indicating that, in addition to being used for the increasing domestic market, heroin entering China is smuggled further to markets in Europe through Hong Kong”. In 2005, 23 seizures were made from passengers at international airports in Pakistan, compared with only three seizures in 2004. The traffickers were bound for different airports in China, the report states.

The report says the seizures of opium in Pakistan have remained at a relatively low level compared with neighbouring countries. Pakistan deployed 10,000 additional troops along its border with Afghanistan in June 2006, in part to strengthen efforts to prevent drug trafficking. Seizures of Afghan opiates in Iran increased considerably in 2005, reaching 350 tons, the report points out.In its report, the INCB expressed concern over problems of drug abuse among Afghan refugees living in neighbouring countries, including Iran and Pakistan, and estimated that about 35 per cent of male and 25 per cent of female drug abusers in Afghanistan had first taken opium as refugees, particularly in Iran and in refugee camps in the NWFP.

The report says that evidence suggests high risk of transmission of HIV among people taking drugs by injection in Afghanistan, particularly among refugees returning from Iran.

The smuggling of large quantities of opium from Afghanistan continues to lead a severe problem in the abuse of opiates in Iran and Pakistan. Iran is the country with the world’s highest rate for the abuse of opiates; the most recent information available indicates an abuse rate of 2.8 per cent. Iran is also facing an increasing problem of heroin abuse by injection. In Pakistan, the rate of abuse of opiates is also high – 0.8 per cent –, according to the recent data available.

The total area under poppy cultivation in Afghanistan increased to a record 165,000 hectares, an increase of 59 per cent over the figure recorded in 2005, and more than twice the figure for 2003. The harvest in 2006 was approximately 6,100 tons of opium. In the southern province of Helmand, where attacks by Taliban forces against government and international troops have increased, the illicit cultivation soared to 69,300 hectares, demonstrating once again the linkage between ensuring adequate security and combating illicit crop cultivation. Only six of the 34 provinces in Afghanistan are free of the scourge of illicit opium poppy cultivation, the report says.

It states that Afghan opiates are trafficked predominantly through Iran, Pakistan and countries in Central Asia. As a result of continuing large-scale opium production in Afghanistan, those countries are faced with a wide range of problems related to drug trafficking, such as organised crime, corruption and relatively high demand for opiates.

The INCB urges the seven member states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation to ensure that implementation of SAFTA does not hamper measures to combat drug trafficking in the region.