In the mountains high above the beaches of Acapulco on Mexico's Pacific coast, heavily-armed soldiers are chest-deep in a field of red, purple and white poppies - the plants used to make heroin. One group has made a large fire in the middle of the clearing while others laboriously uproot the plants one by one, forming unwieldy bundles to hurl on to the smouldering smoke stack.

The operation is part of the biggest attempt in Mexico so far to disrupt a business that has grown out of all proportion in recent years. According to military sources, the hills around Acapulco are home to about 75 per cent of the heroin that Mexico produces. General Eduardo Zarate of the Mexican army says operations such as these have helped destroy about 7,000 hectares of poppy in the area this year alone.