The New Taleban’s Opium Ban: The same political strategy 20 years on?

Apr 14, 2022 | Jelena Bjelica, Kate Clark
View Original

Afghanistan has already lost most of its other foreign income in the form of on and off-budget support, both civilian and military, since the Taleban captured power. 

Seven and a half months after they took power in Afghanistan, the Taleban have officially banned opium.The ban has come at the beginning of the opium harvest and at a time when Afghans across the country are already suffering under the strain of economic collapse triggered by the Taleban’s military capture of power. The production of opiates – opium, morphine, and heroin – is “Afghanistan’s largest illicit economy activity,” according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). 

This situation is remarkably similar to the first time the Taleban have banned opium when they were last in power. According to David Mansfield, it was the Taleban’s sixth attempt at banning opium. The harm caused to Afghan farmers by the 2000 ban was profound. Those in debt found it difficult to survive the winter without the promise of an opium harvest and were forced to default or reschedule their seasonal loans. Some had to resort to selling land and livestock and to even marrying off very young daughters to service their debt. 

At the time, then head of UNODC research unit Sandeep Chawla praised the ban as “one of the most remarkable successes ever,” but later clarified that “in drug control terms it was an unprecedented success, but in humanitarian terms a major disaster”.