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Here's a rundown of what Taliban did: Announce in spring 2022 that growing poppies is banned, but that the people who have already planted it can still grow and harvest it this year. Proceed to destroy any poppy fields found to be planted after the ban (early on so that the affected farmers have time to replant a different crop). At the same time, crack down on the large (but not as known about) meth industry in afghanistan, shutting down not just the growing of ephedra (a precursor of meth), but also trading in it, as well as shutting down meth labs (which were extremely numerous) throughout the summer and autumn of 2022. This showed the farmers that Taliban is serious about fighting drugs, and are likely to uphold the poppy ban next year.Thus, when 2023 came about, most farmers in the south (with large lands, and the main producers of opium) did not even try to plant poppies, instead switching to wheat. The few who did got their crops destroyed. In the north, the situation didn't go down as ideally, as the fields there are smaller and the farmers more reliant on income from opium trade, but even there destruction of poppies took place (and they weren't near as important for opium trade as the southern provinces anyway).Taliban took a hard stance against drugs, but did it intelligently so as to not affect law-abiding farmers, as well as show that unlike the previous government, they were serious about it. In the south, any farmer that kept growing poppies was seen to be asking for it (as it was clear to see what Taliban would do), and so there was no large scale unrest (though, granted, the southern farmers are much richer than northern ones, which also played a role). It is also important to mention that while Taliban banned growth of poppies, it did not, in fact, ban trading in opium, meaning many farmers are sitting on opium stockpiles they created in 2022, waiting for the best time to sell.
The Taliban have done it again: implementing a nearly complete ban against cultivation of opium poppy — Afghanistan’s most important agricultural product — repeating their similarly successful 2000-2001 prohibition on the crop. But the temptation to view the current ban in an overly positive light — as an important global counter-narcotics victory — must be avoided. This is particularly true given the state of Afghanistan’s economy and the country’s humanitarian situation. Indeed, the ban imposes huge economic and humanitarian costs on Afghans and it is likely to further stimulate an outflow of refugees. It may even result in internal challenges for the Taliban itself. And, in the long run, it will not have lasting counter-narcotics benefits within Afghanistan or globally.