Taliban clamp down on drugs, announce ban on poppy harvest

By KATHY GANNON and MOHAMMAD SHOAIB AMIN
Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban have announced a ban on the poppy harvest, even as farmers in some parts of the country began extracting the opium from the plant that is needed for making heroin. The order Sunday warns farmers that their crops will be burned and they can be jailed if they proceed with the harvest. In desperately poor Afghanistan the ban on poppy production will further impoverish its poorest citizens at a time when the country is in an economic free fall. The ban is reminiscent of the Taliban’s previous rule in the late 1990s when the religion-driven movement outlawed poppy production.