Kabul, April 24 (Agency) The Afghan caretaker government has described the poppy product and its processing into drugs as a global problem and called upon the international community to help Afghanistan fight against the drug menace. Head of the Office of the Counter-Narcotics of the Ministry of Interior Affairs, Mawlawi Hasibullah Ahmadi, said as a global problem, the fight against drugs requires the help of the international community. In a ceremony to set on fire a huge quantity of illicit drugs and the objects used in manufacturing drugs on Tuesday on the outskirts of Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul, the official said the interim government is determined to fight against the drug menace in the country.
More than 20 tonnes of illicit drugs, including 635 kg of heroin, were set on fire publicly to show the administration’s resolve to fight against poppy cultivation, processing into drugs, and drug trafficking. Once a poppy-growing country, war-torn Afghanistan has been gradually getting rid of drugs, as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) confirmed in a report that poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has reduced by 95 percent. “The counter-narcotics police have conducted more than 22,000 operations and arrested more than 9,000 individuals on the charge of involvement in the drug business. Police have also destroyed more than 900 drug labs and smashed 13,000 hectares of poppy farms during the operations,” head of counter-narcotics police Mufti Ahmadullah Ahmadi said at the ceremony.