As Fighting Flares in Afghanistan, Support for Licensed Opium Production Grows

Fighting might intensify in Afghanistan, but the opium supply is in good shape. All you addicts and narcotic fiends may rest assure that while our war in Afghanistan is a mess, the drugs will flow.

According to Stopthedrugwar.org:

"NATO has three objectives," said Yaseer. "Their first priority is to defeat the insurgency, secondly to win hearts and minds, and third to wipe out the opium." But, he conceded, those goals are contradictory, given Afghanistan's huge dependency on the opium economy. According to the United Nations, opium accounts for somewhere between 40% and 50% of the national economy.”

However, there is now an attempt to draw NATO into operating a drug eradication campaign. Many Europeans are against it, since it will mean more casualties as this will only escalate the war being waged by the Taliban.

plaque memorializing journalists murdered by Taliban,
at hotel where they stayed in Jalalabad