Opium production increases 32% in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, U.N. report says

Opium cultivation in Afghanistan jumped 32% during 2022 despite the ruling Taliban regime’s ban on narcotics, according to an annual report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The Taliban regime rejected the findings, telling CBS News it was part of a “politically motivated” international pressure campaign.   

“The 2022 opium crop in Afghanistan is the most profitable in years, with cultivation up by one-third and prices soaring even as the country is gripped by cascading humanitarian and economic crises,” said the UNODC report released on Tuesday.

Opium capital of the world

This year has seen farmers cultivating opium on about 576,000 acres of land, compared to 437,000 acres estimated during 2021, making it the third largest cultivation year since 1994, when UNODC monitoring first began. Only 2017 and 2018 saw more Afghan soil used to cultivate opium poppies.

Afghanistan has a long history of cultivating opium, a drug in its own right that’s also the key ingredient in a variety of other highly addictive narcotics, from heroin to a range of opioid painkillers.

The country remained the leading producer of the lucrative drug even during the U.S.-led invasion, despite its own government and partnering nations spending millions of dollars in a bid to eradicate the crop. Southern Afghanistan, the birthplace of the Taliban where thousands of U.S. troops were based during the two-decade war with the Islamic extremist group, has been seen as the hub of opium cultivation since 2001.

“Cultivation continued to be concentrated in the south-western parts of the country, which accounted for 73 percent of the total area and saw the largest crop increase,” the U.N. report said, noting that an estimated 80% of the world’s total opium crop comes from Afghanistan.

A decree, and a denial

After the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the group’s reclusive leader Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada issued a decree outlawing the cultivation of all drugs, including the opium poppy, across the country.

“If anyone violates the decree, the crop will be destroyed immediately, and the violator will be treated according to Sharia law,” warned…