https://www.usip.org /publications/2023/06/talibans-successful-opium-ban-bad-afghans-and-world
The Taliban’s Successful Opium Ban is Bad for
Afghans and the World
The ban is not a counter-narcotics victory and will have negative economic and
humanitarian consequences, potentially leading to a refugee crisis.
Thursday, June 8, 2023 / By: William Byrd, Ph.D.
The Taliban have done it again: implementing a nearly complete ban against cultivation of
opium poppy — Afghanistan’s most important agricultural product — repeating their
similarly successful 2000-2001 prohibition on the crop. But the temptation to view the
current ban in an overly positive light — as an important global counter-narcotics victory
— must be avoided. This is particularly true given the state of Afghanistan’s economy and
the country’s humanitarian situation. Indeed, the ban imposes huge economic and
humanitarian costs on Afghans and it is likely to further stimulate an outflow of refugees.
It may even result in internal challenges for the Taliban itself. And, in the long run, it will
not have lasting counter-narcotics benefits within Afghanistan or globally.
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Afghan farmers harvest poppies in Helmand Province in Afghanistan, April 16, 2015. The Taliban
banned cultivating opium poppy in April 2022, which will have far-reaching negative consequences for
Afghans. (Bryan Denton/The New York Times)
Phasing out Afghanistan’s problematic drug economy will be essential over the longer
term — not least to contain widespread addiction within the country. But this ban, lacking
any development strategy and especially at a time when the economy is so weak that
displaced opium poppy farmers and workers have no viable alternative sources of
income, is not the right way to start on that path.
The Taliban’s Highly Successful Opium Ban
Satellite imagery analyzed by Alcis and associated research by David Mansfield, an
independent researcher who has conducted extensive fieldwork and analysis on
Afghanistan’s opium sector and rural economy for more than a quarter-century, show that
the Taliban opium ban, announced in April 2022, has been remarkably successful in
sharply reducing opium poppy cultivation. In Helmand, by far Afghanistan’s largest opiumproducing province, the area of poppy cultivation was cut from over 129,000 hectares
(ha) in 2022 to only 740 ha as of April 2023. The reduction in Nangarhar, another longstanding opium producing province, is also impressive — only 865 ha this year compared
to over 7,000 ha in 2022.
This is the pattern more broadly in south and southwest Afghanistan. Reductions in other
provinces such as Badakhshan will be more limited, but these areas produced much less
opium in the first place. Though the full picture is not yet clear, Afghanistan may approach
the 90 percent reduction in cultivation achieved during the Taliban’s previous opium ban
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in 2000-2001. This is an undeniable achievement, particularly given the much larger size
of the opium economy this time around (an estimated 233,000 ha in 2022 versus some
82,000 ha in 2000).
How was the ban implemented so successfully? As Mansfield argues, the Taliban took a
relatively sophisticated, staged approach that evolved and intensified over time. The
announcement of the ban was not accompanied by eradication of 2022’s bumper crop of
poppy fields that were about to be harvested, which would have met fierce resistance.
This gave rise to uninformed speculation that the ban was not serious. The Taliban did
engage in eradication of the much smaller spring and summer crops subsequently
planted in 2022, intended to deter others.
There were also major efforts during 2022 to crack down on ephedra, the main ingredient
for Afghanistan’s thriving methamphetamine industry. These actions sent strong signals
to the rural population in advance of the fall 2022 planting season, which, along with
outreach and threats, effectively deterred planting of opium poppy in the south and
southwest of the country. As a result, the bulk of the reduction in poppy cultivation
reflected people not planting in the first place, and this was complemented by eradication
of some remaining poppy fields soon after planting.
Unlike the Taliban’s previous opium ban, the current ban encompasses trade and
processing of opiates, not just poppy cultivation. But just as the standing 2022 winter crop
was exempted from eradication, it appears that trade in opium produced in 2022 and
earlier has been allowed to continue. With the sharp decline in opium poppy cultivation for
this year’s harvest, the bulk of ongoing trade must be in the ample supplies of “older”
opium (UNODC estimated that Afghan opium production was 6,800 metric tons in 2021
and 6,200 metric tons in 2022). It remains to be seen whether this is a temporary
dispensation or will be more permanent. In 2000-2001, trade in opiates was never
hindered.
Immediate Economic Damage
The economic shock from the opium ban is enormous: Not including adverse effects on
downstream processing, trade, transport and exports, Afghanistan’s farm-level rural
economy has lost more than $1 billion per year worth of economic activity as calculated
by Mansfield, including as much as hundreds of millions of dollars that had accrued to
poorer wage laborers and sharecroppers. These people and their families, already at the
margin of subsistence and lacking other job opportunities in Afghanistan’s very weak
economy, will be at even greater risk of hunger, malnutrition and associated health
problems.
This economic shock comes on top of a significant reduction of humanitarian aid in store
for this year — likely at least a $1 billion reduction compared to the $3 billion of
humanitarian aid delivered in 2022. Thus Afghanistan’s mostly poor, deprived population
will be doubly squeezed.
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Moreover, replacing poppy with wheat (as has been happening during the current opium
ban) is economically unviable for Afghanistan’s rural sector as a whole and especially for
households owning limited or no land. Most Afghans don’t achieve food security by
growing their own food. Rather, people make ends meet by growing cash crops or
producing other agricultural products (e.g., livestock and dairy), which can be sold to
provide resources to purchase food needs, or by working other jobs. Wheat is a low-value
crop and a poor substitute for opium, though it does serve as a temporary recourse for
people who may expect to return to opium poppy later, in particular for landowners whose
fields are ample enough to serve their own family’s food needs. Fruits and other tree
crops would be more viable substitutes for opium poppy over the long run but require
significant time and investments.
Another, related outcome is that more people will try to leave Afghanistan, going to
nearby countries and then onward to Turkey and Europe. As Mansfield documents, the
cost of people smuggling is low compared to the potential rewards of being employed in
and sending remittances from Europe. Moreover, other alternatives for the poor that were
available before August 2021 (like finding work in cities, other rural on-farm and non-farm
activities, or the Afghan National Army) are now limited to nonexistent.
Delayed and Longer-term Impacts
Additional damage from the opium ban will materialize with a delay, over the coming
months and years.
An important buffer for better-off rural households is the inventories of opium they have
built up from the 2022 bumper crop. Landowning households able to hold on to their
opium inventories have benefited from capital gains as the price rose, and can sell off
some of them to offset the loss of this year’s crop, while growing wheat and other crops to
feed their families. (It should be noted that the Taliban as a movement and now as a
governing regime do not hold sizable inventories of opium.)
This buffer will erode over time. Suffering will increase among middling farm households
as they exhaust what inventories they have of opium and are forced into more harmful
coping mechanisms, as poorer households have already done in response to broader
economic privation: selling livestock and other remaining assets, eschewing medical care
and medicines, eating less and lower-quality food, sending family members out of the
country, or even marrying off daughters prematurely.
The impact of the opium ban on drug supplies and prices in other countries, and
ultimately in Europe, will not be immediate. After the 2000 Taliban ban, it took about 18
months to two years for the impacts to play out in Europe, as Mansfield notes, in the form
of effective price increases through adulteration of the purity of heroin on markets, which
exacerbated risks to problem drug users from overdoses. Such impacts probably would
become significant this time around if the opium ban is effectively implemented for a
second year.
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What Happens Next?
The big question now is whether or not the poppy ban will be maintained for a second
year.
Historically, there have been examples of successful opium bans in Afghanistan, both
nationally (2000-2001) and regionally (Nangarhar province for a number of years,
significant reductions in Helmand on two occasions). But maintaining these bans has
invariably proved difficult. It is unclear what the Taliban would have done during the late
2001 planting season, after the 2000 ban weakened them politically in key rural areas
and arguably contributed at least in part to their surprisingly rapid defeat by international
forces after 9/11. There were already signs of increasing resistance against the ban,
which suggest that it could not have been fully maintained even if the Taliban had
remained in power. And the provincial-level bans during the Islamic Republic period
became increasingly hard to sustain over time as privation and resistance against them
grew.
So, implementation of the ban for a second year can be expected to face increasing
resistance. As more influential middle-sized and larger landowners in the south and
southwest deplete their opium inventories they are unlikely to be as accepting as they
were in the first year and could even lobby against continuation of the ban. As a core
Taliban constituency, their voices will be heard, though to what effect remains to be seen.
And in the east and northeast, where landholdings are small and resistance already
significant, it may well snowball if the ban is enforced for a second year.
The political blowback within the Taliban from the ban, limited and manageable so far,
thus may intensify if the ban continues to be seriously implemented into 2024. In addition
to influential landowners, Taliban figures associated with the drug industry may
increasingly weigh in or actively try to subvert the ban, at least locally.
However, the serious, sustained effort that went into implementing the opium ban in its
first year, and the political and personal capital Emir Haibatullah Akhundzada has
invested in this effort, suggest that it will continue and there won’t be an outright reversal.
And the economic shock and human suffering will continue and worsen as long is the ban
is implemented.
International Response?
There will probably be a counter narcotics-driven, knee-jerk response that the effectively
implemented Taliban opium ban is a good thing. However, history amply demonstrates
that banning opium in Afghanistan by itself is not sustainable, nor does it address the
drug problem in Europe and elsewhere. And it won’t stop rampant drug use within
Afghanistan. Supply-side measures will not work if not backed up with sensible
development interventions to help make them sustainable. This is especially true given
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the weak Afghan economy and lack of ample non-drug income earning opportunities. And
simply put, these measures will not reduce drug consumption unless accompanied by
effective demand reduction measures.
The Taliban opium ban may provide a well-grounded justification for more humanitarian
assistance. As with that aid as a whole, however, this would just be a band-aid to provide
temporary relief unless and until the opium ban is rescinded or undercut. Moreover, any
bump to humanitarian aid that may materialize will at best maintain it closer to the existing
level, not result in an increase from last year.
Some forms of basic needs rural development aid could be helpful — agricultural support,
small-scale rural infrastructure, income generation, small water projects, investments in
agro-processing and marketing, and the like. It would make sense to orient any basic
needs assistance that becomes available for Afghanistan in these directions, while
recognizing that the modest amounts of money involved will at best have a marginal
impact. Custom-made, standalone “alternative livelihoods” projects should be avoided,
especially if designed, overseen or implemented by counter-narcotics agencies, which
lack development expertise. It is broader rural development that will over time make a
difference, as part of a healthy, growing economy that generates licit jobs and livelihoods
opportunities.
And finally, the international response must acknowledge not only the overall damage that
the opium ban is causing for the Afghan economy, but also the likely upsurge in
outmigration that will result. Trying to block people flows at the Afghan border will work
only imperfectly, and to the extent it is successful will worsen privation and hunger within
the country.
Overall, while understanding the extraordinary success of the Taliban’s opium ban and
what it tells us about the Taliban’s strength and effectiveness as a governing regime, the
international response must be clear-eyed about the very real costs the ban imposes both
on Afghanistan and the world, on top of the other very serious economic and social
problems the country faces.
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