A giant haul of illegal drugs is prepared for destruction in Afghanistan.
The confiscated drugs include raw opium, hashish and chemicals used to process opium into heroin.
(SOUNDBITE) (Dari) DEPUTY MINISTER OF AFGHAN INTERIOR FOR COUNTERNARCOTICS, GENERAL BAZ MOHAMMAD AHMADI, SAYING:
"The amount of drugs destroyed in today's ceremony was over 20 tons. These drugs were seized by Afghan counternarcotics police and other Afghan security departments from areas around Kabul."
Afghanistan has long been the world's leading supplier of opium---with opium poppy cultivation hitting an all-time high in 2013, according to a recent UN report.
The U.N. drug office pegged the value of poppy cultivation and opium products produced here in 2013 at about $3 billion - that's a 50 percent increase over the estimated $2 billion in 2012.
This----despite years of counter-narcotics efforts that, the UN report says, have cost the United States a whopping $7.6 billion since t