In addition to the gross financial figures (300 million bucks and counting) here at Global Security and UNODC, the less than obvious drug use and addiction figures make the US drug market look like a walk in the park.

It's no wonder why half the fighters never see death coming

By one UN estimate, the Taliban raise up to $300-million a year from the drug trade. Retail sales worldwide of Afghan heroin are said by some to be of the order of 200 billion dollars a year, but this number is surely far too high. By one account, consumer expenditure figures for Western Europe could be around $20 billion for heroin, and in the year 2001 ONDCP estimated total US consumer spending on heroin at about $12 billion. In 2005 the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimated the total value of the global opium and heroin market to be valued at $65 billion, with about 11 million heroin users worldwide. [United Nations, ”2005 World Drug Report,” Office on Drugs and Crime, June 2005, pg. 132.]