Search Results for: Taliban poppies
- World News
Taliban crackdown causes 80% drop in Afghan opium cultivation
Armed with AK-47 assault rifles and large sticks, a Taliban anti-narcotics unit in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province is on a mission to eradicate poppy farming. In April 2022, Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada issued a decree prohibiting poppy cultivation, with violators facing crop destruction and penalties under Sharia law. The ban was imposed due to the harmful effects of opium…
- Crime News
Taliban’s poppy ban hits Afghan farmers amid humanitarian crisis
In a remote compound in southern Afghanistan, Bibi Hazrato, a distressed 60 year old, watches as a group of men destroy her poppy crop, adhering to a Taliban government order to eradicate the narcotic plant from the country. Hazrato confronts the men, but one of them simply says… “God says crush this.” The profitable trade of poppy tar, which is…
- World News
Afghanistan opium trade booms since Taliban takeover
The cultivation of opium poppy as a medicinal plant has a long tradition in Afghanistan. The milky sap extracted from the seed pods is dried to produce raw opium, an effective remedy for severe pain. Today, opium is used primarily as an intoxicant and as a raw material for the production of stronger drugs like heroin. In the last harvest…
- World News
Afghanistan: Can Taliban avert food crisis without foreign aid?
More than half the population of Afghanistan will face high levels of “acute food insecurity” from November to March, according to a recent report from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Program (WFP). The report said the acute food insecurity is expected to last through the post-harvest “lean season,” during which harsh winter weather threatens…
