Afghanistan, the world's biggest producer of opium, has also become a major source for cannabis, overtaking Morocco as the top producer of hashish, the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime said Wednesday.
"While other countries have even larger cannabis cultivation, the astonishing yield of the Afghan cannabis crop makes Afghanistan the world's biggest producer of hashish," UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in a statement.
An UNODC survey estimated Afghanistan farmers produce 145 kilograms per hectare of hashish, the resin produced from cannabis, as compared to around 40 kg/ha in Morocco, for an overall amount of 1,500 to 3,500 tonnes a year.
It estimated that 10,000 to 24,000 hectares of cannabis are grown in Afghanistan every year worth 39 to 94 million dollars, which is still only 10 to 20 percent of the value of opium production to farmers.
Afghanistan's illicit drugs industry is worth up to three billion dollars a year, controlled by militants and gangs who use cross-border routes to smuggle drugs to Pakistan and Iran, and bring arms and fighters back in.
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