On Sunday, April 3, the Afghan Taliban announced a ban on cultivating opium poppy flowers, which are used to make heroin, the Washington, D.C. newspaper The Hill, reported. The Taliban order also forbids the production, use and transit of other narcotics.
Quickly registering disapproval in Washington, The Hill claims the Taliban move is viewed as courting global approval, but also puts farmers’ livelihoods at risk until a new crop can be substituted. The irony could be noted that the Taliban’s drug ban followed by only a few days, the U.S. Congress effort at legalization of marijuana.
Nonetheless the edict has force. “As per the decree of the supreme leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, all Afghans are informed that from now on, cultivation of poppy has been strictly prohibited across the country,” the Taliban’s supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada reportedly announced at a news conference yesterday. Akhundzada’s order warned that “if anyone violates the decree, the crop will be destroyed immediately, and the violator will be treated according to the Sharia law.”
