Karzai agrees. "A lot of people are still involved in drug trafficking," he says. "Maybe even there are people in the government who may be involved in drug trafficking. Drug trafficking, drug cultivation, poppy cultivation, was a major way of life in this country. Now that the country's going back toward stability, now that we have a better hope for tomorrow, that we have hope for tomorrow, the Afghan people have begun to distance themselves. Slowly, slowly."

Things are moving much too slowly for the country's top law enforcement officer, interior minister Ali Amad Jalali, who resigned last month after complaining about the lack of progress in stemming the opium trade, and bringing government officials involved in it to justice.

Last June, his elite Afghan anti-drug force, trained and assisted by the British, raided the offices of Sher Muhammed Akhundzada, the Governor of Helmand Province, another warlord widely suspected of being involved in the drug trade.

They seized nine and a half tons on opium, but the investigation went nowhere. Governor Akhunzada said the drugs were not his but that they had been seized by police and were just being stored at his headquarters.

He showed 60 Minutes a locker now loaded with another two and a half tons of opium. "This is opium that we confiscated. We have to keep the confiscated opium in a safe place. And this is where we keep it," says Akhunzada, through a translator.

Not everyone bought that argument, especially the chief counter-narcotics officer for Helmand Province. When the investigation stalled, Abdul Samad Haqqani went on Radio Liberty, which is funded by the U.S. Congress, and denounced the governor as a major narcotics trafficker.

Haqqani has since disappeared and President Karzai says he would look into the matter.

As for the tons of opium in the Governor's administrative office, Karzai wasn't the least bit surprised.

"It's almost half of the economy," he says. "Why would it surprise me if there was poppy found in a governor's office? Or administrative offices? Whether they were confiscated or whether they belonged to somebody. In both cases, it doesn't surprise me."

Asked how his government would deal with the governor amid these allegations, Karzai says the governor asked to be removed.

"This governor of Helmand, he has come to me a number of times to say that he is