The Fraying of the Taliban’s Counternarcotics Efforts – The Diplomat

Good times, as they say, don’t last forever, especially when the achievements have been force-managed.    

For nearly three years, a Taliban ban on poppy cultivation has been in place in Afghanistan. In April 2022, eight months after assuming power, the Islamic Emirate announced a ban on all types of narcotics. The ban surprised many but was welcomed across the board, with only a few remaining skeptical about the sustainability of the move. The ban, however, has persisted. But with the halt of the U.S. humanitarian aid, the clampdown runs the danger of being rolled back.

The implementation of the April 2022 ban took a while. Only in early 2023 did the Taliban force farmers to stop growing poppies. Eradication campaigns were launched, too. As a result, poppy cultivation was drastically reduced in the country, especially in the southwestern provinces, which were the heart of such production. There was open dissent as well as murmurs of protests. The Taliban used force, selective leniency, and negotiation to bring about change. The net result was to severely disrupt the market. This counternarcotics move appeared to have achieved what billions of dollars in American-funded programs had failed to do over the preceding two decades.

Poppy cultivation, however, wasn’t entirely eliminated. Some farmers replanted to replace destroyed crops. Others moved their agriculture to more remote areas to escape the Taliban diktat. As a result, the heartland of poppy cultivation shifted from the southwest to the northeast – especially to the province of Badakhshan, which shares borders with Tajikistan and Pakistan. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) stated in its November 2024 report that 59 percent of all cultivation took place in Afghanistan’s northeast. Evidence suggests that even the Duki, Kila Saifullah, and Kila Abdullah districts of the Balochistan region in Pakistan, which borders southeastern Afghanistan, witnessed a surge in poppy cultivation. From 27 hectares in 2020, cultivation had spread to 380 hectares in 2023.

In September 2024, the Taliban announced the formation of a High Commission for Combatting Narcotics and Alcohol to be led by Deputy Chief Minister Abdul Kabir. During a meeting to mark the commission’s launch, Taliban officials claimed to have conducted 87,000 anti-narcotics operations over the past two years, resulting in the arrest of nearly 20,000 individuals on charges of drug trafficking and sales. However, despite these impressive figures, Afghanistan appears to be sliding backwards.

Alongside periodic arrests of smugglers and seizures of drugs, since late 2023, the Taliban has taken a softer approach toward small farmers as well as those who are selling opium in open markets. Researchers conducting fieldwork in 2024 have found that the sale of opium in Afghanistan has continued unabated. The “drug bazaars” had been shut, but the trade continued legally with opium being sold alongside food items in legal markets, with the tacit approval of the Taliban authorities. This supports the UNODC’s assertion that there has been a 19 percent increase in opium cultivation in 2024, compared to the previous year. 

The UNODC report suggests that apart from Badakhshan, 13 provinces of Afghanistan grew poppy in 2024. That included Kandahar, from where the Taliban’s supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada had issued the ban on poppy, and three of its adjoining provinces: Helmand, Uruzgan and Zabul. Poppy is also grown in four provinces sharing borders with Turkmenistan (Badghis, Faryab, Jawzjan, and Balkh), two which border Tajikistan (Badakhshan and Takhar), and two which border Pakistan (Badakhshan and Takhar). Balkh also borders Uzbekistan. 

Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has regional and global implications. The ban has led to soaring prices of opium in Afghanistan and also worldwide. Commentators have opined that the lag between the decree and its implementation gave producers and traffickers time to boost output as well as stockpiles. At the same time, the specter of and the anxiety about a looming shortage drove an inflationary panic-buying frenzy. From the long-running pre-ban average of $100 per kilogram, dry opium prices reached $730 per kilogram by the first half of 2024. The fact that opium was being sold at a rate seven times more than the pre-ban period theoretically meant that even with a seven-fold decrease in poppy cultivation the narco-economy would run pretty much at the pre-2022 level. There have been unconfirmed reports about the Taliban branching out into chemical drug production, which keeps their coffers adequately full.

The Taliban have effectively used their counternarcotics activities as leverage to gain access to international forums and advocate for the resumption of unrestricted global aid. By nearly eliminating opium cultivation, the Taliban intend to present themselves as competent in governance and responsive to global concerns.

This achievement, however, has already come under stress. In the third week of February 2025, the Trump administration exempted worldwide security and counternarcotics funds worth $5.3 billion from its earlier announced aid freeze. However, humanitarian aid for some of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, including Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Myanmar, and Afghanistan remains halted. This is bound to drive more Afghans including small-time poppy growers to desperation. As their stockpiles dwindle, even the large farmers and drug traffickers would be inclined to return to poppy cultivation. It remains to be seen if the Taliban can continue to use repression and accommodation to curb the surge in demand and supply of the growing narco-economy.