Opium growers on a high under Taliban
New regime’s pledge to stamp out the trade rings hollow as West braces for further influx of heroin
‘If the Taliban wants to ban poppy cultivation, we want them to make a good government. If they can’t do that, we will grow opium’
THE countless sacks full of thick, brown paste give off a distinctive smell as the turbaned traders and farmers haggle over prices.
The opium being freely bought and sold in the drug bazaars of southern Afghanistan will soon make its way as heroin into neighbouring countries and then into the world beyond.
Pictures of traders smiling for the camera stand in contrast to the Taliban’s pledge one month ago to stamp out the heroin business, in a repeat of a ban they imposed under their 1990s regime.
Opium growers in Helmand told The Daily Telegraph they are again preparing to plant fields full of poppy as the Islamist group have stalled on implementing their ban, one of a number of promises that appeared designed to please the West that have since been broken.
It has led to fears that Britain could see a further influx of heroin as the insurgents choose to profit from taxing the trade instead of stamping it out.
Prices rose sharply after Afghanistan’s new militant rulers used one of their first press conferences to announce they would halt the business, which provides more than 90 per cent of the heroin in Britain. But they have since fallen back after growers said they had received no such order and were preparing to carry on as normal.
One trader in Now Zad district, who declined to be named, said business in the provinces’ opium bazaars was proceeding unhindered.
“The trade in opium is free and everyone can buy and sell without threat,” he said.
He said prices had jumped from £57 per kilo to £78 amid uncertainty about production after the Taliban took power in mid-august. They were now back down to around £60.
The Taliban banned all opium cultivation under its last regime in 2000, though there were accusations that the measure was imposed to manipulate supply and inflate prices.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the movement’s chief spokesman, said in his first press conference: “When we were in power before there was no production of drugs.” He said: “We will bring opium cultivation to zero again.”
Afghanistan is by far the world’s largest opium supplier and is estimated to produce four-fifths of global supply. The drug accounts for 11 per cent of the Afghan economy, the United Nations estimated in 2018.
Production grew year by year even as the international community including Britain poured millions of pounds into counter-narcotics efforts during their two decades in Afghanistan.
A farmer called Mohammad Gul in Marjah said he planned to plant an acre of opium and knew hundreds of farmers who w ere preparing to do similar.
While the trade brings in huge sums for some kingpins, many farmers scrape by, but have little other way to make a livelihood. Any Taliban move to halt the trade would likely face stiff resistance.
“No ban has been announced by the current government,” he said. “People are in a bad economic situation and would not agree with a government ban this season. We don’t have any other way to get money.”
Jan Mohammad, a farmer from Nad-e-ali district, said he was planning to sow three acres when the planting season begins in a month’s time. He said: “If the Taliban wants to ban poppy cultivation, we want them to make a good government and prepare economic growth jobs and everything. If they can’t do that, we will grow opium.”
It came as general Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate hearing the Afghanistan withdrawal was a “strategic failure”, and that Joe Biden ignored advice from him, and the head of US Central Command, to keep 2,500 troops there.