Afghans hoard opium as safe financial haven

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Opium is emerging as a new gold standard in Afghanistan, where traders and farmers are hoarding the drug as a source of ready cash to hedge against the risk of a power vacuum when foreign troops leave, the country's UN drugs czar said. Fear is mounting among Afghans and foreign governments alike that the planned pullout of most NATO combat troops by the end of 2014 and Afghan national elections in the same year could see the country engulfed in more conflict.

"You see suddenly people are rushing to opium and cannabis as in the eurozone we were rushing to the Swiss franc before the euro," said Jean-Luc Lemahieu, head of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan. "It's basically an economic reflex, understandable by itself, toward a very insecure question mark, what will I be, where will I be, how will I be and my family too." Afghanistan supplies about 90 per cent of the world's opium, from which heroin is made. Corruption also infects many aspects of life and the buoyant drug trade flourishes. The poppy economy in Afghanistan, which provides an income for insurgents, grew significantly in 2011 with soaring prices and expanded cultivation, according to a UN report. In 2011, the farm-gate value of opium production more than doubled from the year previously to $1.4 billion and now accounts for 15 per cent of the economy, the UNODC said. "A lot of people were buying the opium and the cannabis as a kind of gold standard, as a kind of security, financial guarantee for a very insecure future," Lemahieu said. "Wall Street principles are being applied by the Kandahar farmers every day," he said. Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Afghans+hoard+opium+safe+financial+haven/6419786/story.html#ixzz1rJaryj5k