What Afghanistan is drawing global attention in the post-Taliban era is not a scene of "peace, freedom and stability," but unprecedentedly rampant trade in illegal narcotics.

A survey by the United Nations (UN) Office on Drugs and Crime last year found that Afghanistan was the world's largest source of illegal heroin, taking the place of Myanmar, an impoverished Southeast Asian nation adjacent to the famous Golden Triangle.

According to the UN narcotics agency, the Central Asian country produced about 3,400 tons of opium last year, accounting for three-quarters of the world's total and making it the world's leading opium producer.

Afghanistan's current production of opium poppies, heroin's raw ingredient, has grown greater than during most of the time the Taliban regime controlled the nation.

Currently, an estimated 1.7 million Afghans out of the country's population of 28 million, are directly involved in drug-related industries.

Despite its long history of the opium cultivation and processing, Afghanistan's current top status in the world's narcotics industry and its prospering drug-related businesses, are closely related to US policy in the country.

In 1999, opium output in Afghanistan reached a peak of 4,565 tons and it fell to 185 tons in 2001, according to a UN report.

However, the downward tendency stopped after the overthrow of the Taliban regime by the US-backed Northern Alliance in late 2001. Once again, opium production began to rapidly increase.

According to the British Independent, drug transactions have become the world's third largest trading commodity, behind only oil and weapons.

US intelligence agencies and military officials have never neglected such key factors in their overseas activities. But they have done too little to check the rampant opium trade.

The huge profits that have afforded greedy profiteers are at the price of the health and lives of millions of people in the world.