WASHINGTON: According to a government report, Afghan heroin's share of the market in this country doubled from 7 percent in 2001 to 14 percent in 2004, the latest year studied. Meanwhile, heroin-related deaths are also on the rise, along with more seizures and more overdoses.
The amount of high-quality heroin throughout America is surging because of an increasing supply from Afghanistan -- and with it the fear that record-breaking poppy harvests after the U.S. invasion are fueling more addictions and overdose deaths back home.
Heroin-related deaths in Los Angeles County soared from 137 in 2002 to 282 in 2004 before dropping to 239 in 2005, still a jump of nearly 75 percent in three years, a period when other factors contributing to overdose deaths remained unchanged, experts said.
The jump in deaths was especially prevalent among users older than 40, who lack the resilience to recover from an overdose of unexpectedly strong heroin, according to a study by the county's Office of Health Assessment and Epidemiology.
"The rise of heroin from Afghanistan is our biggest rising threat in the fight against narcotics," said Orange County sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino. "We are seeing more seizures and more overdoses."
According to a Drug Enforcement Administration report obtained by the Los Angeles Times, Afghanistan's poppy fields have become the fastest-growing source of heroin in the United States. Its share of the U.S. market doubled from 7 percent in 2001, the year U.S. forces overthrew the Taliban, to 14 percent in 2004, the latest year studied.
Another DEA report, released in October, said the 14 percent actually could be significantly higher.
Not only is more heroin being produced from Afghan poppies coming into the United States, it is also is the purest in the world, according to the DEA's National Drug Intelligence Center.
Despite the agency's own reports, a DEA spokesman denied that increased quantities of heroin were reaching the United States from Afghanistan. "We are not seeing a nationwide spike in Afghanistan-based heroin," Garrison Courtney wrote in an e-mail to the Times.
He said in an interview that the report that showed the growth of Afghanistan's U.S. market share was one of many sources the agency used to evaluate drug trends. He refused to provide a copy of DEA reports that could provide an explanation.
The agency declined to give the Times the report on the doubling of Afghan heroin into the U.S. A copy was provided by the office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., , a member of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control.
This potent heroin, which the DEA says sells for about $90 a gram in southern California, has prompted warnings from some officials who deal with addicts that they reduce the amount of the drug they use. Many addicts seeking the most euphoric high employ a dangerous calculation to gauge how much of the drug they can consume without overdosing. An unexpectedly powerful bundle of heroin, therefore, can be deadly.
"I tell people, 'If you're using it, only use half or three-quarters of what you used to,' because of the higher potency," said Orlando Ward, director of public affairs at the Midnight Mission on Los Angeles' Skid Row.
Health workers in boutique rehab centers and health clinics for the homeless say increasing numbers of clients are addicted to more powerful heroin.
"My patients say it's more available and cheaper," said Michael H. Lowenstein, a doctor at the Waismann Method detoxification center in Beverly Hills.
Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime warned world health authorities in October of the increase in Afghan heroin.
"This, in turn, is likely to prompt a substantial increase in the number of deaths by overdose, as addicts are not used to injecting doses containing such high concentrations of the drug," he said.
From 1980 through 1985, Afghan heroin dominated the U.S. market, with a 47 percent to 54 percent share, according to the DEA.
Afghanistan's share dwindled to 6 percent for much of the 1990s, as competition from Southeast Asia and Colombia grew. Meanwhile, the Taliban was cracking down as it gained territory, virtually eliminating poppy production after taking over the country.
Once the fundamentalist Islamic government was overthrown in 2001, Afghans turned again to the poppy trade to survive in one of the poorest countries in the world.
A report released Nov. 28 by the World Bank said U.S. and European efforts to end Afghanistan's $2.3 billion opium business were failing.
The production of opium used to produce heroin reached its highest level ever in Afghanistan this year. It accounted for more than one-third of Afghanistan's gross domestic product and 90 percent of the world's supply of illicit opium, mainly supplying Asia and Europe, according to the report.
The poppy crop now drives the economy in some regions of the embattled nation, helping to fund a Taliban resurgence.
In the United States, Afghan and Mexican poppies were the second-largest source of heroin in 2004, according to the DEA's Heroin Signature Program. South America, led by top supplier Colombia, held 69 percent of the market. That figure dropped 19 percentage points from the 2003 level as U.S. and Colombian efforts to eradicate the trade enjoyed success and as Afghanistan's share increased, according to the DEA.
The Department of Homeland Security also has found evidence of increasing Afghan heroin in this country. The agency reported skyrocketing numbers of seizures of heroin arriving at U.S. airports and seaports from India, not a significant heroin-producing country but a major transshipment point for Afghan drugs. The seizure of heroin packages from India increased from zero in 2003 to 433 in 2005 -- more than 80 percent of total heroin mail seizures that year.
Outgoing general sees more fighting in Afghanistan
CAMP SHARONA: The outgoing US commander in Afghanistan said that he expects higher levels of fighting in the coming year, and that Taliban militants will try to briefly overrun district centers to unhinge Afghans' morale.
Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry also said the recent killing of a high-level Taliban commander shows that fugitives like Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar will one day slip up, and that the US will strike.
Eikenberry, expected to be out of Afghanistan in late January, said he expects militants early in 2007 to attack border security posts, to extend their use of suicide bombs and to launch assault on district centers in groups of 25 to 100 fighters.
But Eikenberry said none of the Taliban's efforts would provide "a significant military challenge" for US, NATO and Afghan forces, which he said have improved greatly in the past year.
"The capability exists for that array of allied and Afghan forces to dominate militarily wherever they move to," he said.
Eikenberry said that as he looks ahead to the first half of the coming year, "I anticipate higher levels of fighting."
When asked if that was in comparison to 2006, he said: "We should not be surprised by levels of fighting in parts of southern Afghanistan that rivaled what we saw last year."
Violence rose sharply in Afghanistan in 2006, killing an estimated 4,000 people, making it the deadliest year since the US-led coalition swept the Taliban from power in 2001.
Militants launched a record 117 suicide attacks this year, about a six-fold increase over 2005, killing 206 Afghan civilians, 54 Afghan security personnel and 18 soldiers from NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said NATO spokesman Maj. Dominic Whyte.
The number of US troops killed in Afghanistan dropped slightly, from 93 in 2005 to 87 in 2006. But the number of casualties suffered by other NATO countries rose sharply.
Eikenberry on Friday traveled to three US bases in eastern Afghanistan's rugged mountains to talk with commanders and shake hands with soldiers who must fend off attacks by Taliban militants crossing the border from Pakistan.
Using an American football analogy, he told soldiers who had lined up in formation to greet their top commander that the United States was tackled inside its own end zone on September 11, 2001.
"We got the ball back on our own goal line - our mission: to go 100 yards (meters) and score a touchdown," he said, using the term for a goal in the sport.
"You don't have enough time to get us a touchdown, but you can get us another first time. Are we on the 30 yard line? The 40? I can't say, but you are making progress."
Eikenberry said an "extraordinary amount of resources" from the United States government _ and help from the Afghan and Pakistani governments - is being used to hunt down al-Qaida leader bin Laden and Taliban leader Omar, generally thought to be hiding in the mountainous Pakistan-Afghan border region.
He said the killing in a US airstrike December 19 of Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, regarded as one of Omar's three top associates, shows the U.S. is ready to strike.
"With that intensive effort that is out there, eventually opportunities will occur, and when those opportunities present themselves, as we demonstrated with Osmani, we're ready to strike," he said.
"One day they slip, one day they make a mistake, and we'll be there ready to strike."
Eikenberry is expected to leave the country next month as Gen. Dan K. McNeil, a four-star U.S. general, prepares to take command of the NATO forces in Afghanistan. | 
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