And his brother-in-law Mukthar notes that Afghan eradication teams didn't touch Ateegh's cannabis crops last year, while they did destroy more than half of his poppy fields. "The foreigners don't ...

Cannabis is the most lucrative cash crop in ... increasingly higher prices in these new markets," said Steve Tavella, a field program officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development ...

“Eradicating marijuana and opium fields can breed resentment by people and be destabilizing,” says John Dempsey, a rule-of-law adviser to U.S. and Afghan officials for the U.S. Institute of Peac ...

As the Afghan and Western governments focused on the problem of soaring Afghan opium production, which hit record levels this year and remains a booming industry, cannabis cultivation increased 40 ...

21, 2008, 12:38 AM EST / Source: The Associated Press Afghan and coalition ... stamp out its poppy fields, an increasing number of farmers have turned to marijuana, which is receiving less ...

In fact, UNODC data suggest that more than 70,000 hectares of Afghan farmland is now being used to grow cannabis -- putting Afghanistan ahead of Morroco as the leading producer of cannabis and ...

In the report, the Afghanistan Cannabis Survey 2009, the UNODC estimated the extent of Afghan cannabis production at between 25,000 and 60,000 acres. While the number of acres under production is ...

“They were going to go back and grow opium or marijuana ... Afghan National Police officers “would shake down these farmers and say if you paid them 10,000 afghanis, they would bypass a field ...

Masters of Afghanistan after outlasting the United States military in unconventional warfare for nearly 20 years, the Taliban are also formidable opponents online. Shortly after the regressive ...

His four small fields were cracked from five years of drought ... Constant warfare has been the norm for the Afghan people for the past 23 years, killing millions of civilians and fighters ...