While cultivation rose, the actual production of opium dropped by about a third in 2012 compared with 2011 because of a plant blight that reduced its yield.
Farmers are obliged to sell their leaves at authorized markets, and if they cannot produce a receipt, they must justify why their harvest was lost (for example, because of blight) with a certificate from their local growers' association.
I lived in Dallas many years ago, and at one time there was a movement to tear down the Texas Depository Building, because it was such a blight on the image of the city.
Besides, most of us see them as a blight of flying rats.
Hundreds of people gathered in Barnes, south-west London, on 27 April, arguing against increased flights from Heathrow because of noise blight.
Hundreds starved to death because of the blight, and nearly one million immigrated to America during the famine years Others immigrated to England, Canada and Australia, never to return again.
The division of Korea remains a blight for everyone concerned.
"You can't say that everything that is wrong with Telegraph is because of this one site, but it's a blight," Councilman Kriss Worthington said.
It was approved before the city, in 1983, forbade the construction of such buildings because their awkward proportions made them a blight on neighborhoods.
