Inside the Afghan drug war
Afghanistan's drug economy is as pervasive as its poppy fields, linking impoverished farmers, heroin traffickers, and the Taliban. Photographs by Benjamin Lowy
An Afghan boy wanders through a field of poppies. In 2007, Afghan farmers harvested a record 8,200 metric tons of poppies, much of which wound up as opium. What draws farmers to the black market? In some years, poppy farmers earned six times Afghanistan's per capita income.
