"More than 100 farmers have been jailed so far this year, they are locked up for a few days to a week. They are released only after they promise not to plant poppies again," said an anti-drug expert, who asked for his name to be withheld.
Experts are now employing more sophisticated technology, such as satellite imaging, to search for poppy fields.
But the success at curbing opium cultivation in the north might be short-lived as farmers can easily return to planting poppies, which are up to 10 times more lucrative than other crops.
This might happen sooner rather than later due to a severe winter that killed off wheat crops and hurt farmers' ability to provide for their families, Oguz said.
"People really need food in Badakhshan. It is a very food insecure place. If you can't persuade the donor community to give more aid to Badakhshan, and I am talking of immediate short-term needs and long term development plans, they will definitely go back to opium cultivation."
Although opium prices have come down because of over-production, Oguz said farmers could still grow and stockpile it as it can be kept for up to 20 years without going bad.
DRUG ABUSE IN CITIES
Drug abuse in the cities has shot up, fuelled largely by the return of Afghan refugees many of whom were forcibly deported from neighbouring Iran and Pakistan in recent years.
"They get a culture shock. They come back and they have no work. They lose their livelihood. Imagine the stress," said Mohammad Raza of the Health Protection and Research Organisation in Kabul.
Kabul's population was half a million in 2001. It has since ballooned to some 4.2 million. Unemployment is at least 40 percent.
"There is very little knowledge of drug abuse. Drug dealers will go to them and say this is good; the only thing to relieve psychological pain is drugs," Raza said, adding that heroin and tranquilisers were especially popular in the cities.
Increasing numbers of addicts are injecting rather than smoking opium, a habit NGOs say Afghan returnees brought back from abroad. The sharing of needles is causing health problems.
A 2005 survey of 464 injecting drug users (IDU) in Kabul found three percent were HIV positive, while 36.6 percent were hepatitis C carriers and six percent were hepatitis B carriers.
"There are concerns HIV will get into the general population as a lot of drug users have wives and children and there is unprotected sex," Raza said.
NGOs are distributing clean needles and operating halfway houses to help addicts kick the habit and the government is trying to legalise methadone to help wean addicts off hard drugs.
However, everyone agrees that the road ahead can only get harder as more refugees return.
"We don't have enough resources, people don't realize that this is a national problem," said Tariq Suliman of the Nejat Centre in Kabul, the country's oldest drug rehabilitation centre.
