Press release: “According to a report issued today by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), opium cultivation in Afghanistan in 2008 will be broadly similar to, or only slightly lower than last year’s record harvest of 192,000 hectares. Final output figures (8,200 tons last year) will depend on eradication (aimed at reducing the crop), and on agricultural yields (affected by weather conditions). The assessment, contained in UNODC’s Afghanistan Opium Winter Survey, was presented by its Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa, at the Joint Co-ordination and Monitoring Board meeting in Tokyo. “Opium cultivation in Afghanistan may have peaked, but the 2008 amount will still be shockingly high”, said Mr. Costa. “Afghan drugs, and the funds they generate, are a destabilizing force. Europe, Russia and the countries along the Afghan heroin routes, should brace themselves again for major health and security consequences”, he warned.”