The Taliban have banned poppy production.

 

Afghans harvest poppy plants. ABC News/AP.

The Taliban have banned harvest of poppies in Afghanistan. ABC News. The Taliban have told farmers that they will burn their poppy crops and that they would be arrested if they continued the harvest. The move will be a massive blow to the Afghanistan economy, which has already collapsed in the wake of the Taliban taking over the country. 7% of Afghanistan's GDP in 2021 was due to poppy cultivation.  Afghanistan is the largest producer of poppy in the world. The Taliban had banned opium production in the 1990's but after the US invasion, poppy production exploded. It is unclear how the Taliban will provide for the farmers that produce poppies. 

My Comment:

Well, the Taliban appear to be doing something that the United States could not do in 20 years of warfare. We spent millions of dollars in trying to stop the Afghans from growing poppies and it didn't work. The Afghans never stopped doing it regardless, there was too much money to be made. 

Of course, it's always possible that the Taliban will not be able to totally stop poppy production in the first place. Though they did have success back in the day but there is a ton of money to be made so it's possible some of the opium trade will continue. That being said, I think the Taliban will be willing to kill people if they grow poppies, which probably will be a huge incentive to stop growing it. 

The problem is that the economic damage is going to be pretty terrible. A lot of people are going to lose a ton of money and might even starve to death. What else can they do when their harvest has been burnt? They can of course plant new crops, but how can they afford seeds if their current crops are burnt to the ground? 

This could have consequences for the Taliban. People have been resistant to fighting back against the Taliban because they still had something to lose. But now these poppy farmers no longer have anything to lose. If they are going to starve anyways, why not rebel? 

What the Taliban has to do now is find some way to take care of these farmers. But how can they do so? They have limited funds to work with and it's not like there is any international aid or trade coming in. They can probably do something but will it be enough? I'm not sure. 

I don't think the Taliban had too much in the way of a choice here though. Their religion says that drug use is forbidden so it makes sense that they would ban it. If not they would be huge hypocrites. You would think there would be an exception in this case but apparently not...