Taliban Announced Anyone Caught Growing Poppy Crop Will Be Subjected To Sharia Law

The Taliban government has announced an opium ban and has made it clear that anyone caught harvesting these poppies will be subjected to Sharia law.

The government has warned the farmers that these crops will be burned and the farmers can face jail time if they are caught harvesting these poppies.

AP

Sources report that the Taliban were facing heavy resistance from within the group against the ban and that a surge in the number of farmers cultivating poppy in recent months has been observed.

Ensuring his anonymity, a farmer in Helmand says that in recent weeks prices of poppy had already more than doubled on rumors the Taliban would ban its cultivation. But he added that he needed to grow poppies to support his family.

EPA

'Other crops are just not profitable,' he said. The harvest and planting seasons vary across the country. 

In the Taliban heartland of southern Kandahar the harvesting has begun but in the east of the country, some farmers are just beginning to plant their crops.

A desperate Afghanistan continues to grapple with poverty as the country deals with an economic free fall.

The decree was announced by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid at a news conference in the capital of Kabul.

AP

According to the order, the manufacturing of narcotics and the transportation, trade, export and import of heroin, hashish, and alcohol is outlawed.

This ban resembles the one of the previous Taliban rule in the 1990s when the movement espousing a harsh interpretation of Islam outlawed poppy production. 

The ban was implemented within two years and according to the UN, it largely helped eradicate poppy production.

AP

But as the Taliban was ousted in 2001, farmers again started the trend of growing poppy production.

Poppies are the main source of income for millions of small farmers and day laborers who can earn upwards of $300 (£228) a month harvesting them and extracting the opium.

AP

Now, Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, and even though billions of dollars spent by the international community during its 20 years in Afghanistan to eradicate the drug. 

Before the Taliban government came into power in 2021, Afghanistan produced some 6,000 tons of opium, which the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said could potentially yield 320 tons of pure heroin.

AP

An estimate suggests that 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-long Taliban insurgency, the movement reportedly made millions of dollars by taxing farmers and middlemen to move their drugs outside Afghanistan.

It is reported that senior officials of the US-backed government also reportedly made millions on the flourishing drug trade.

AP

Washington spent more than $8billion (£6.1billion) trying to eradicate poppy production in Afghanistan during its nearly 20-year war, which ended with the Taliban takeover of the country in August.

Now almost 80% of heroin produced in Afghanistan reaches Europe en route through Central Asia and Pakistan.

According to a UN report in 2021, income from opiates in Afghanistan was between $1.8billion and $2.7billion, more than 7 percent of the country's GDP. 

The same report said 'illicit drug supply chains outside Afghanistan' make much more.

AP

Afghanistan continues to grapple with a humanitarian crisis as the Taliban rule the country, and reports suggest that more than 95% of Afghans do not have enough to eat.

The ban, while hitting drug production houses hard, will likely devastate small farmers who rely on opium production to survive. 

It's difficult to predict when the Taliban will be able to create substitute crops and financing for farmers, at a time when international development money has stopped.

AP

As the poor struggle to get food, the poor farmers often use the promise of the next year's poppy harvest to buy staples such as flour, sugar, cooking oil and heating oil.

When the Taliban last ruled, they employed village elders and mosque clerics to enforce the ban. 

In villages that ignored the ban, the Taliban arrested the elders, clerics and offending farmers.

EPA