The Taliban-led government of Afghanistan announced on Sunday that it had banned the cultivation of poppies, a long-time staple of the country’s agricultural sector and a critical source of wealth for many of its poorest citizens.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid made the announcement at a press conference in Kabul. The Taliban said that harvesting from the poppies would be forbidden and that Afghan farmers who persisted in their harvests would be jailed. Poppy plants in Afghanistan are harvested for their paste, which is the base ingredient of opium; the paste is later dried and refined into raw heroin for export around the world. Prior to the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan was home to roughly 90 percent of the world’s heroin supply.

Mujahid’s decree also banned manufacturing or transporting alcohol, heroin, or hashish, all of which are forbidden to consume under most interpretations of Islamic law. 

The ban was announced at the beginning of Afghanistan’s traditional poppy harvesting season, meaning that some of the annual crop had already been extracted. Mujahid offered no guidance on what should be done with pre-existing supplies of opium, nor what farmers should plant instead.

The current ban on poppy cultivation is the second ban the Taliban announced while in power. During the group’s first period of rule over the country from 1996 to 2001, they instituted a total ban on poppy production in 2000. That ban is still regarded as one of the most effective anti-drug campaigns in world history, resulting in major reductions to Afghanistan’s opium production and a significant increase in the price of heroin worldwide.

After the September 11 attacks and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the ban on poppy production was lifted, and the country’s annual poppy crop quickly exceeded its pre-2000 level. Efforts to reduce poppy cultivation by the U.S. coalition and the allied Afghan government in order to stem the international drug trade were complicated by the coalition’s desire to avoid antagonizing farmers and regional anti-Taliban warlords. The Taliban also benefited from the drug trade, with Taliban commanders actively engaging in drug trafficking as a source of revenue during the group’s twenty-year insurgency.

The ban also comes amid a devastating financial downturn in Afghanistan, which the United Nations has warned could lead to famine. An estimated 95 percent of Afghan civilians are undernourished, leading the Taliban-led government to ask the UN for $4.4 billion in emergency humanitarian aid.

Trevor Filseth is a current and foreign affairs writer for The National Interest.

Image: Reuters.