Lieutenant Colonel Abdul Qadir is head of the Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan in Helmand. “I hope to one day see an Afghanistan free of the cultivation, smuggling and trafficking of illegal narcotics. Then there would be no need for the Counter Narcotics Police”.

Afghanistan currently produces 90% of the world’s opium, the key ingredient in heroin. The UK-led Provincial Reconstruction Team in Helmand Province is helping Afghanistan to tackle the country’s illegal drugs trade which destroys lives around the world.

At a new training college, young Afghan farmers are learning to grow legal crops that can give them an alternative income to opium. Established farmers are destroying poppy fields so they can use the land to grow wheat and other crops from subsidised seeds.

This work is seeing results - poppy cultivation in Helmand is falling as farmers start to grow new crops. To curtail the traffickers, Afghanistan’s counter narcotics police play a crucial role finding and destroying smuggled drugs before they leave the country. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that opium production is now at it's lowest level since 2003.

To find out more about how UK aid is working in Afghanistan, please visit: <a href="http://www.dfid.gov.uk/afghanistan" rel="nofollow">www.dfid.gov.uk/afghanistan</a>

Photo: MOD/SAC Neil Chapman (RAF)

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