From In Afghanistan, Heroin Trade Soars Despite U.S. Aid:
In 2005, Afghanistan earned $2.7 billion from opium exports, which amounts to 52% of the country’s gross domestic product of $5.2 billion, according to UNODC estimates. ‘You probably can’t build democracy in a country where narcotics are such a large part of the economy,’ says John Carnevale, a former senior counternarcotics official in the first Bush administration and in the Clinton administration.
Well, you probably can’t build democracy in a country where illegal narcotics — or illegal anything — are such a large part of the economy.