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A former senior US anti-drug official has accused Afghanistan's president of playing the US "like a fiddle" and protecting drug lords in his country for political reasons.

Thomas Schweich, who until June served as US state department co-ordinator for counter-narcotics and justice reform for Afghanistan, said Hamid Karzai was impeding the so-called war on drugs.

But the US government underscored its continued support for Karzai on Thursday despite the allegations.

Schweich wrote in an article on the New York Times website on Wednesday that "narco-corruption went to the top of the Afghan government".

Karzai told reporters he did not know about the specific allegations in the New York Times report but he defended Kabul's attempt to target the problem.

"Without a doubt, some Afghans are drugs smugglers, but the majority of them are the international mafia who do not live in Afghanistan," he said.

Drug production has skyrocketed since the US-led invasion that ousted the Taliban in 2001.