Poppy cultivation continues to expand across Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran despite reports of the imminent demise of natural opiates Since the Taliban announced its poppy ban in Afghanistan in April 2022, there has been considerable speculation about the demise of natural opiates and their inevitable replacement by synthetic opioids. While UNODC has correctly reported the dramatic fall in cultivation following enforcement of the ban in late 2022, it has erroneously estimated

There are signs of increased levels of poppy planting in Afghanistan in 2026, especially in Badakhshan in northeast Afghanistan, where widespread cultivation has persisted despite the Taliban drugs ban. There are also changing patterns of poppy cultivation in neighbouring Pakistan and Iran where farmers from southwest Afghanistan are increasingly relocating to cultivate poppy in response to the Taliban’s efforts to restrict opium production. Of particular concern is the evide

Since the Taliban take over in August last year, there has been increasing rhetoric on both sides around the highly contentious fence the Pakistan Government has now nearly completed along the length of its border with Afghanistan. In recent months, several social media posts have attempted to infer that the Afghan Taliban have been dismantling the fence in places where it has been constructed. These would appear to be mostly posturing. It is notable then that a video and p