June 26, 2024 1:06 PM

UN warns of overdose deaths after Afghan opium production plummets

The Taliban-ordered crash in opium production in Afghanistan, long the world's dominant supplier, could drive up overdose deaths as heroin users switch to synthetic opioids already proving deadly in Europe, a U.N. report said on Wednesday. The cultivation of opium, from which heroin is made, fell by 95% in Afghanistan last year after the Taliban banned the production of narcotics in 2022. Although opium production in Myanmar increased by 36% last year, it still fell globally by 75%, the United ...