This year’s opium harvest in Afghanistan is projected to reach a record high, up 34 per cent on 2006, with Helmand province ‘single-handedly’ becoming the world’s largest source of illicit drugs, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said on Monday.

Better yields have combined with a 17 per cent in­crease in land under cultivation to undermine poppy eradication efforts and produce a record harvest of 8,200 tonnes. With the increase in opium production, Afghanistan now accounts for 92 per cent of global production. The area of opium cultivation in Afghanistan is more than the combined total coca cultivation area in Latin America, the UNODC stated.