Afghanistan

Facts and stats

• According to UNODC, Afghanistan cultivated 154,000 ha of opium poppy in 2012, up 18 percent from 2011.
• UNODC estimated that Afghan opium poppy crops in 2012 yielded 3,700 MT of raw opium, down 36 percent from 5,800 MT in 2011.
• According to the UNODC and MCN, the number of poppy free provinces (those provinces with less than 100 ha of poppy under cultivation) remained the same at 17. (Note: The U.S. and UNODC estimates differ due to dissimilar methodologies for estimating poppy cultivation and opium yields.)
• The Afghan government’s efforts to enforce its drug laws also enjoyed growing success. The Criminal Justice Task Force (CJTF) is a vetted, self-contained unit that consists of prosecutors, investigators, and first instance and appellate court judges.
• Afghan authorities made some progress in improving their capacity to interdict large quantities of narcotics and arrest narcotics traffickers.
• According to authorities, the police apprehended seven out of ten of the “most wanted” drug traffickers in 2011. Over the first nine months of 2012, Afghan and Coalition Forces conducted a total of 481 counternarcotics operations, 62 percent more operations than the previous year.