After the biggest opium harvest in Afghanistan’s history, American officials have renewed efforts to persuade the government to begin spraying herbicide on opium poppies, and they have found some supporters within President Hamid Karzai’s administration, officials of both countries said. Many spraying advocates, including officials at the White House and the State Department, view herbicides as critical to curbing Afghanistan’s poppy crop, officials said. That crop and the opium and heroin it produces have become a major source of revenue for the Taliban insurgency. But officials said the skeptics — who include American military and intelligence officials and European diplomats in Afghanistan — fear that any spraying of American-made chemicals over Afghan farms would be a boon to Taliban propagandists. Some of those officials say that the political cost could be especially high if the herbicide destroys food crops that farmers often plant alongside their poppies. For all the controversy over herbicide use, there is no debate that Afghanistan’s drug problem is out of control. The country now produces 93 percent of the world’s opiates, according to United Nations estimates. Its traffickers are also processing more opium into heroin base there, a shift that has helped to increase Afghanistan’s drug revenues exponentially since the American-led invasion in 2001.

Kirk Semple and Tim Golden, New York Times
Should Afghanistan agree to pressure from US officials and begin spraying herbicide on its poppy fields in order to cut down on production that supplies over 90% of the world's opiates and provides revenue for insurgents despite fears on the ground that it could destroy food crops as well and be used as anti-US propaganda by the Taliban?