The Diplomat: The humongous trade is run by regional and multinational cartels with complex and elaborate illicit networks across the region. Politicians, security force personnel, and even the Taliban have been part of this symbiotic nexus, profiteering enormous amounts of money. Amid the anti-poppy measures of the Taliban, a record amount of Afghan drugs moved
WP: One year on, it’s not clear whether the Taliban will soon make a significant dent on a crop that the United Nations estimated accounts for one-tenth of the entire Afghan economy. The country’s poppy farmers supply the raw ingredients that, after being boiled into bricks, refined and exported to Europe via Iran and Pakistan,
NIKKEI: The increasing number of addicts in Afghanistan shows how opium and heroin have a strong and corrosive impact on families. Husbands get their wives addicted, and mothers often expose their children to opium’s harmful effects. This happens when mothers use opium while pregnant, expose their children to opium smoke, or use opium to calm
Global Initiative: Having long hosted Western Asia’s largest methamphetamine market, Iran for decades has employed an aggressive multi-million-dollar campaign to curb the trade. The discovery, however, of the ephedra plant in neighbouring Afghanistan – a source of ephedrine, a key ingredient for the drug – threatens to undermine Tehran’s efforts. The abundance of cheap meth
Khaama: The US Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Thomas West, tweeted that the recent reports on a significant drop in poppy production in the country are “credible and important.” But since the Taliban seized power, Afghanistan’s economy has collapsed, and the population is now facing a severe humanitarian catastrophe. Experts claim that as a result, one
Khaama: Several related economic activities are involved in Afghanistan drug trafficking. Cartels maintain a symbiotic relationship with the Taliban by giving farmers advances to plant ephedra and opium while providing the financial assistance necessary to keep the jihadist proto-state alive. These cartels use Pakistani sources to facilitate the acquisition of chemicals required to produce drugs.
By RFE/RL’s Tajik Service May 9, 2023 Tajikistan has asked member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to establish an independent agency to combat drug trafficking from Afghanistan. Foreign Affairs Minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin says he also told a high-level meeting of officials from the SCO last week in India that it was important to establish
Farmers in southern Afghanistan say they are dismayed at the destruction of their poppy farms by the Taliban government since it assumed control of Afghanistan in 2021. Once a lucrative crop, farmers made a fortune under the former government backed by the West, but the Taliban enforced a strict ban in 2023 to avoid
8am: The inhabitants of Nimroz asserted that, under the vigilant observation of the Taliban, thousands of kilograms of drugs are smuggled out of the province daily to neighboring countries, particularly Iran. They alleged that Toyota vehicles and catapults are utilized to transport tens of kilograms of opium across the Iranian border. The Taliban do not
8am: The number of drug users inside Afghanistan also increased, leading to addiction among many young people and families. In general, the Afghan government and its international allies failed to control drugs. Additionally, despite the propaganda of banning opium cultivation, the Taliban are taking advantage of the drug trade. Therefore, it appears that Afghanistan will