Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban have announced a ban on poppy harvesting, although farmers in some parts of the country have begun extracting the plant’s opium, which is needed to make heroin
By KATHY GANNON and MOHAMMED SHOAIB AMIN Associated Press
Apr 3, 2022 at 4:17 p.m
• 3 minutes reading time
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KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban on Sunday announced a ban on poppy harvesting, even as farmers in some parts of the country began extracting the plant’s opium, which is needed to make heroin.
The Taliban warned farmers that their crops would be burned and that they could be imprisoned if they continued to harvest. Harvest and planting times vary in Afghanistan. Harvesting has started in the Taliban heartland of southern Kandahar, but in the east of the country some farmers are just beginning to plant their crops.
In desperately poor Afghanistan, the ban appears to further impoverish the poorest citizens at a time when the country is in economic freefall.
The decree was announced by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid at a press conference in the capital Kabul. The order also banned the manufacture of narcotics and the transportation, trafficking, export and import of heroin, hashish and alcohol.
The ban recalls the Taliban’s earlier rule in the late 1990s, when the movement, which advocated a strict interpretation of Islam, banned poppy cultivation. At that time, the ban was implemented nationwide within two years and, according to the UN, largely contributed to the eradication of poppy cultivation.
However, after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, farmers in many parts of the country returned to poppy cultivation. Poppies are the main source of income for millions of small farmers and day laborers, who can earn up to $300 a month from their harvest and the extraction of opium.
Today, Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of opium, although the international community has spent billions of dollars trying to eradicate the drug during its 20 years in Afghanistan. In 2021, before the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan was producing more than 6,000 tons of opium, which could potentially supply 320 tons of pure heroin, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
Afghanistan produces more opium than all opium producing countries combined and last year was the sixth straight year of record opium harvests.
During the years of the Taliban insurgency, the movement reportedly made millions of dollars by taxing farmers and middlemen to ship their drugs outside of Afghanistan. Senior officials in the US-backed government also reportedly made millions from the thriving drug trade.
Washington spent more than $8 billion to stamp out poppy production in Afghanistan during its nearly 20-year war, which ended with the Taliban taking over the country in August.
Almost 80% of heroin made from Afghan opium reaches Europe via Central Asia and Pakistan.
According to a 2021 UN report, revenue from opiates in Afghanistan ranged from $1.8 billion to $2.7 billion, more than 7% of the country’s GDP. The same report states that “illicit drug supply chains outside of Afghanistan” earn much more.
The Taliban ban comes as the country grapples with a humanitarian crisis that prompted the UN to demand $4.4 billion last month because 95% of Afghans don’t have enough to eat.
The ban, while hitting drug manufacturing houses hard, is likely to wipe out small farmers who depend on opium production for survival. It’s hard to say how the Taliban will be able to provide replacement crops and funding opportunities for farmers at a time when international development funds have stopped.
Afghanistan’s poorest often use the promise of next year’s poppy harvest to buy staples like flour, sugar, cooking oil and heating oil.
When the Taliban last ruled, they hired village elders and mosque clerics to enforce the ban. In villages that ignored the ban, the Taliban arrested elders, clergymen and abusive peasants.
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Gannon reported from Islamabad