Anyone who claims to be surprised by this must not know the history of US military intervention and the drug trade. The triad of military action, paramilitary/insurrectionist drug runners and subsistence farmers has long been characteristic of US foreign invasions, as well as more surreptitious CIA operations from Asia to Latin America. We knew from the onset that Afghanistan would be no different, and Patrick Cockburn likewise reported in 2007 that Iraq's opium fields have been brought back to life as a direct outcome of circumstances created by the US invasion there: conditions of primal anarchy are ideal for criminal gangs and drug smugglers and producers.

Afghanistan is an incredibly poor country. According to the Asian Development Bank, "Despite significant development gains since the 2001 ouster of the former Taliban regime, the people of Afghanistan continue to suffer widespread and growing insecurity; weak governance; inadequate health care, education, and other public services; and gender inequality. Lack of employment opportunities and endemic poverty continue among a large segment of the population, with two thirds of the population living below or just above the country’s official poverty line." That the US/UN lackeys currently trying to run the country publicly posit Afghan farmers would choose wheat over opium at current prices is more of the same dog and pony show we have seen for decades. The whole region is awash in heroin now, and i'm guessing that as the number of disenfranchised, disillusioned youth whose families, et al. have already been shattered by violence and despair increases, the inclination to escape reality by chasing the proverbial dragon will grow proportionately.