PARIS, Nov 20: The collapse of the Taliban is encouraging a large-scale return to opium production there, experts say, as farmers make use of the quickest cash crop available to buy their way out of poverty.

At the same time international police forces have detected the arrival of unusual quantities of heroin on the market, as a result of what they take to be a dumping policy by the leading Pakistani traffickers.

“All our information is consistent. They are re-planting poppies in a major way,” said Bernard Frahi, director for Afghanistan and Pakistan of the UN’s Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP).

During 20 years of warfare Afghanistan became the world’s largest grower of opium poppies, with 70 percent of the market, but in July last year the Taliban announced an abrupt change of policy and outlawed their cultivation.

The result was a 95 percent drop in production, the UN said. But that is now set to be reversed, after the Taliban first lifted their ban on poppies in response to the US attacks and then were driven from power.

“In a country that has been bled dry, (opium) is the easiest way to get cash very quickly,” Frahi said. “A farmer earns 9,000 dollars per hectare of opium, as opposed to only 58 dollars for wheat.—AFP