Over the past few years Afghan heroin consumption has grown into a major health problem in Russia.

Based on matching data from the UN and the Russia’s federal drug control agency, poppy production has jumped 40 times since the US intervention in Afghanistan, reaching 7 500 tons in 2008.

The poppy plantations cover a surface of some 193 000 hertares. Once harvested, the opium poppy is processed into heroin and morphine through the use of imported chemicals. 92% of the plantations and laboratories are located in zones controlled by NATO troops.

In 2008, heroin manufactured in Afghanistan took a toll of more than 100 000 worldwide.

Consequently, Moscow has decided to take up the issue of NATO’s responsibility with the U.N. Security Council.

Officially, US policy makers are against fumigating the poppy fields to avoid antagonizing the Afghan farmers. They prefer to curb the entry of the chemical agents required.

During the Soviet era, the CIA - following the advice of French secret services Director Alexandre de Marenches - had prodded the Mujahedins to sow poppy in oder to intoxicate the young Red Army soldiers. At the time, the chemical components were imported by French agents infiltrating the NGO Doctors Without Borders. The on-the-spot logistics were organized by the Karzai family.

As is widely known, the better part of the current Afghan production is bought and processed by a criminal organization led by Ahmad Wali Karzai, President’s Karzai’s half-brother, and controled by the Pentagon. Western Europe’s share is dispatched on US military planes to the Bondsteel camp (Kosovo), at which point it is taken over by Hashim Thaçi’s Kosovar mafia. The latter became Prime Minister of Kosovo thanks to the support of Ambassador Frank Wisner Jr. and Richard Holbrooke, President Obama’s Special Envoy to Afghanistan.