'Unprecedented increase in opium production' --- Yuri Fedotov, the head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, tells DW that Afghanistan is now producing record amounts of opium poppy which is destined to become heroin in "new markets." -- Yuri Fedotov: There are different sources of heroin and basically if we take Europe it comes mostly from Afghanistan - which produces almost 80 percent of all opium and heroin in the world - and unfortunately the latest reports of the UNDCP show there is an unprecedented increase both in cultivation and production of opium - especially in cultivation. There is a record figure that has reached 200,000 hectares. -- They never had such an area of opium poppy cultivation even in the peak of production in 2007 and 2008. So it means that producers and drug dealers, they are guided by the well-known principles of a market economy, and they would never increase production if they were not sure there will be new markets. Destination is mostly Europe but also Africa. Our recent report on Africa indicated there are more and more seizures of heroin in West Africa in addition to cocaine which goes through the trans-Atlantic route from South America to Europe through west Africa. Some of this heroin may reach the United States as well but we estimate that this is not the major route supplying heroin to the United States. - More, DW, at: http://www.dw.de/unprecedented-increase-in-opium-production/a-17428227