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Opium production rises by 32% in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan

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Opium production rises by 32% in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan​


by The Frontier Post

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KABUL (KHAAMA PRESS): Despite the Taliban government’s ban on drugs, opium cultivation increased by 32% in Afghanistan in 2022, according to a report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

According to the UNODC report released on Tuesday, November 1, “the 2022 opium crop in Afghanistan is the most profitable in years,” with cultivation increasing by one-third and prices surging even as the country is encircled by escalating humanitarian and economic crises.

The UNODC said that opium poppy cultivation climbed by 32% in Afghanistan from the previous year to 233,000 hectares, making the 2022 harvest the third-largest cultivated area since monitoring began.

Afghan farmers are “trapped” in the illegal opiate industry, while seizure events around Afghanistan imply that opiate trafficking remains in place, said Ghada Waly, executive director of UNODC.

Nevertheless, opium poppy growing occupied one-fifth of the province of Helmand’s arable land in southern Afghanistan, according to the UNODC report. Following the announcement of the poppy cultivation ban in April, the report says that opium prices have skyrocketed. Sales of opium increased Afghan farmers’ income from $425 million in 2021 to $1.4 billion in 2022, a more than threefold, jaw-dropping increase.

This comes as the Taliban authorities outlawed the cultivation and narcotics including opium poppy in April 2022.


 
Until the farmers are given an alternative it will continue.
Just about to comment the same when I saw thread. If the Talibs prevent people from feeding their families, they will have revolts on their hands. Also, any neighbor that blocks their “exports” will face hostilities.

If mining and transit trade pick up, those are the only two industries that can displace opiate cultivation, and even then the profits can be rolled into high efficiency agriculture in an effort to end opiate production.

Other agricultural ventures are not only labor Intensive, they are too capital intensive.
 
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Natural consequence of the dry climate of Afghanistan, poverty, lack of opportunities, a broken country, the much larger profits for farmers and their families when cultivating opium compared to every other crop and opium poppy cultivation requiring only a moderate amount of water before and during the early stages of growth.

It is of course completely un-Islamic given the opium/heroin/drug epidemic in Afghanistan but the Taliban always looked elsewhere and had no problem turning Afghanistan into a de facto narco-state.
 
Opium has medicinal uses also, if I am not mistaken? Any opium processing gurus here?
 
Opium has medicinal uses also, if I am not mistaken? Any opium processing gurus here?
Opium is the raw material to produce Morphine, a potent pain killer used to treat Cancer patients and others with extreme pain. The term 'Opioids' i.e., synthetic analogs of morphine to have similar effects is the origin of addiction epidemic.
 
Well then i guess some generals on our side will become really rich.
 

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