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10/13/2004:

"Bitter-Sweet Harvest: Afghanistan's New War"

You need not go far from the southern city of Kandahar, the former spiritual stronghold of the Taliban, to find poppy fields. A 20-minute drive away, farmer Mahbub is busy harvesting his crop, despite the Interim Authority's ban in January 2002 on poppy cultivation. Sap from the poppies is turned into opium - a class-A drug sold for millions of US dollars worldwide.

"There is no way I will stop growing poppies unless you can offer me an alternative crop which will give me the same amount of money," Mahbub told IRIN, scraping the sap from a poppy head, which is then refined into the lethal drug.

Full Article : irinnews.org