'Sharp drop' in Afghan opium crop

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime says opium cultivation has fallen by 22% in a year and production by 10%, with the biggest fall in Helmand province. But the figures are still higher than three years ago, when British troops began fighting Taliban militants there.

The UN says the drugs trade, which helps fund the insurgency, threatens the legitimacy of the Afghan state. It has called on the international community to sustain progress in Afghanistan, which produces 90% of the world's heroin.

It said 20 of the country's provinces are now poppy-free, but the BBC's Chris Morris in Kabul says that does not mean they are free of the refining and trafficking of drugs. The UN report concludes that the bottom is starting to fall out of the Afghan opium market, with the price of opium at a 10-year low. The UNODC report praised the introduction of UK-backed "food zones", which distribute wheat seed for farmers to plant.

• "The Opium Poppy", Opioids.com.
• "Heroin", DEA.
• "Afghanistan: Opium Winter Assessment", UNDOC.