Opium production in Afghanistan drops by 95%: UN report

While this is great news in a vacuum this clould have serious implications for the drug market in europe where „real“ heroin is still more popular than fentanyl since its far more readily available (through countries like Afghanistan). This lower prod. rate might lead to fentanyl spreading in europe leading to more deaths like we see in the US.

While this is obviously speculation its still a very interesting case where a good change may lead to a worse overall outcome.

America was complicit in it's production while in Afghanistan. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/09/how-the-heroin-...

Also from UNODC: Methamphetamine manufacturing in Afghanistan increasing as heroin trade slows.

<https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/press/releases/2023/September...>

which is the level of 2001, the year the international coalition went in to spend the next 20 years there.

Long-ass but eye-opening article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/the-other-afgh...

It focuses on one woman who's a few years older than me, but has only known conflict and a lot of running away from bombs since she was five. Fucking hell!