Taliban supreme leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada has outlawed the cultivation of poppy, the source of sap that is refined into morphine and heroin.
In a decree issued on Sunday, he is fulfilling his promise to ban the narcotic, after claiming power last year. Afghanistan is estimated to have accounted for 90% of global opium trade in 2021.
If anyone violates the decree, the crop will be destroyed immediately and the violator will be treated according to the Sharia law, Taliban spokesman Inamullah Samangani tweeted on Sunday.
In addition, the governing militant group has also banned the consumption, transportation, sale, export and import of all kinds of drugs and alcohol.
Taliban has expected harsh resistance within the group against the ban and has reportedly said that there had been a rise in the number of farmers cultivating poppies in previous months, according to Reuters’ sources in the militant group.
On Sunday, Afghan farmers collected their first opium harvest of the season in the southern province of Helmand, in Taliban’s political heartland.
Poppy prices have more than doubled prior to rumors that a ban would ensue, according to an anonymous farmer in the province speaking to Reuters.
Any repression of poppy cultivation is expected to hit farmers. Last August, Taliban pleaded for international assistance to provide them with alternative crops to the booming poppy fields. The United Nations has responded by calling for action on the pledges.
Returning to power after seizing the capital Kabul last year, Taliban announced its government would be going back to its zero-tolerance drug policy.
The militant group had previously ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001 until they were toppled during the US-led invasion of the country.
About 90% of the world’s opium and heroin came to the USA from Afghanistan last year. With production and exports centered in Taliban-controlled areas, the militant group is thought to have taxed the drugs during their 20-year insurgency.
Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Salam Hanafi has pushed back against claims the Taliban helped the USA fuel poppy cultivation, saying on Sunday.
UN officials reported that the Taliban likely earned more than $400 million between 2018 and 2019 from the drug.
The amount of land planted with poppies hit a record high in 2017 and has averaged around 250,000 hectares in the last four years, roughly four times the level of the mid-1990’s, UN figures show.
The UN expects that another country in Asia will step up its poppy cultivation, Myanmar, which was the biggest heroin producer in the world in the 1980s, before more cost-efficient Afghanistan took over.
RT. com / ABC Flash Point Drugs News 2022.
According to the CIA they have had a better offer from the RUSSIANS.
A lot of good will come out of this and a lot of pain as well as withdrawals. And I always thought Afghanistan was only good for rare earth metals and cookware, Silly me. The next thing will happen is the US politicians will get further direction from Pfizer and Lilly to start up the War again.
For sure one of the alternative scenario’s.
Poppy fields, another failure of American exceptionalism… After bloody and senseless occupation, which in fact promoted this form of “farming” and also indiscriminate killings, Afghanistan is in square one. After 20 years of “bringing democracy” and “school for girls” Travesty! Again, who is the war criminal, eh?
Loud & Clear
http://www.ascertainthetruth.com/att/images/stories/afghanopium.jpg
The CIA won’t be happy. I guess they have to find another place to supply drugs to the depressed Americans.
Myanmar is in turmoil. But it’s too close to China. They will get clobbered.
Maybe they can do it in northern Australia.
Pharma will make chemical compositions to replace the purified poppy medicine.
Another blow to CIA and MI6…aka west….these thugs were making money out of Afghan’s poppy..by maintaining supply line..now China is there making contracts with Afghans on Lithium…money launderer and creepy pedophile Biden is a omen from US the sooner the Americans hang him the better..there must be someone in America who hang this old prick.
He was a dead man walking?