2.5 tons of marijuana found in Afghan school

[unhappycamper]

2.5 tons of marijuana found in Afghan school
By Jason Straziuso - The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Dec 21, 2008 11:29:28 EST

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan and coalition troops found and destroyed 2.5 tons of marijuana in an abandoned school in southern Afghanistan, while coalition troops killed four militants elsewhere in the south, officials said Sunday.

The marijuana, which was stored in 2-feet tall stacks, filled several rooms of a school in the Arghistan district of the southern province of Kandahar, a statement from U.S. forces in Afghanistan said.

“No students or faculty were at the schoolhouse at the time of the discovery. The school’s furniture had been taken out of the classrooms and left in the courtyard. The amount of rust on the furniture indicated the school may not have been used for its intended purpose for a prolonged period of time,” the statement said.

Col. Jerry O’Hara, a U.S. military spokesman, said using a school as a drug warehouse “is an attack on the future of all Afghanistan.”

Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of opium, the main ingredient in heroin. But as the U.S. and other Western nations have tried to help Afghanistan stamp out its poppy fields, an increasing number of farmers have turned to marijuana, which is receiving less attention from authorities.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/12/ap_afghanistan_marijuana_122108/%2e