“Afghanistan will no longer be an opium-growing country,” said Taliban spokesman Zabibullah Mujahid two days after taking Kabul, promising to overcome the country’s dependence on illegal drug trafficking. And adding a crucial note: “The international community must help us”. Because the new masters of Afghanistan are fully aware that they are facing an infinitely complex problem, on which their future as rulers may depend.
Islamic fundamentalists are mindful of 2001, the last year of their dominion over the country and the first of the twenty years under Western control. It was then that Mullah Omar, in agreement with the United Nations, bans the cultivation of opium poppy, a fundamental ingredient for opiate drugs (morphine, among others) as well as heroin, whose market is now as then dependent on Afghan exports (source of more than 90% of heroin in circulation globally in 2020).
Several analysts – including award-winning journalist Nico Piro , an expert on Afghanistan and author of two books on the subject – agree that the 2001 ban cost the Taliban a revolt and the loss of population support, one of the reasons for their political-military defeat. But even Westerners, intent on limiting the flow of heroin to their own countries, have failed miserably and obtained the opposite effect.
Estimates of opium production (in tons) from 1994 to 2020 (source: Unodc)
As data from the UNDC (United Nations Office for Drugs Control and Crime Prevention) indicate, opium production only increased since 2001, despite repeated Western attempts to oppose it. In 2017, the record year, the acres planted with opium poppies quadrupled compared to the times of Taliban rule. In 2020, Afghan farmers produced 6,000 tons of opium, according to the UNDC.
Estimates of opium production (in cultivated hectares) from 1994 to 2020 (source: Unodc)
Simply, the cultivation of the flower is a supporting beam of the country system, where 90 percent of citizens live below the threshold of poverty and where the harsh climatic conditions do not lend themselves to a wider variety of plantations. Opium poppies are robust and require little water, production is relatively safe, the product is stored and transported very easily. And the lives of hundreds of thousands of Afghan families rely on their derivatives.
As Piro explains, the economic system behind opium trafficking is often the only one capable of supporting rural farmers, even though it can trap them in a debt spiral that forces them to continue production. “In Helmand and in the south in general, there are traditional agricultural contracts that provide for payment for sowing by the farmers, so the risk of non-sale of the harvest is zero”, says the journalist.
Finally, the “industry” of opium poppy cultivation (and that of heroin refining, which has only developed in recent times) is one of the few economic realities in the country capable of producing value, although most of it arises from international black market. Not even the twenty years of Western occupation (in which the state was able to stand up only thanks to external aid) have not led to the birth of new productive capacities. To the point that, now that the international taps have been turned off, the economy is on the verge of bankruptcy – and the Taliban will need every penny.
Therefore, regardless of religious opposition, the new rulers of Kabul are well aware that they cannot attack a reality so deep-rooted and essential for the sustenance of entire areas of the country (as well as the harbinger of a large slice of GDP). According to analysts from the BBC and the ODI think tank, they do not benefit directly from the opium trade, but derive their livelihood from taxes and duties, which are also imposed on the various stages of heroin production, from cultivation to transport, from refining to international traffic.
Political instability in Afghanistan can only favor the black market for opium, which according to Unodc estimates for 2021 is in excellent health. According to various international bodies, exports of ephedrine, a plant from which an ingredient useful for methamphetamine are obtained, and cannabis, both products with new “industries” behind them and immense markets abroad are also on the rise (think of the crisis of opiates in the US).
In such a climate (and given the solidity of the system), thinking of reconverting opium plantations, as Westerners tried to do in their time, is little more than a vain hope. We need a stronger state than local realities, with plans and financing, of which there is no trace at the moment. The same applies, as Piro points out, to state control of the industry in order to produce and export legal opium (such as that for medical purposes).
The West, therefore, is faced with the usual dilemma: in order to try to impact the Afghan black market and avoid reducing part of the people to starvation, it must deal with, and possibly finance, the Taliban, without at the same time recognizing their Islamic Emirate of ‘Afghanistan. It is not yet clear what form such a dialogue could take, but it is not even known which international organizations, between the UN and NGOs, will be allowed to remain in the territory (or receive money from abroad, which is almost impossible at the moment).

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