Opiate supplies continue despite the Taliban drugs ban

While many argue that a shift into synthetic opioids downstream in Europe is a function of a shortage of opium in Afghanistan caused by the Taliban drugs ban, opium prices in Afghanistan have been falling since their peak in December 2023: a function of substantial inventories in southwest Afghanistan, continued widespread cultivation in Badakhshan, improved processing techniques, and the dramatic rise in poppy cultivation in Pakistan and to a lesser extent Iran in 2025.

This is the third consecutive season of the Taliban's ban on poppy cultivation in Afghanistan. While there are signs that poppy cultivation will increase in 2025, it will likely remain at historically low levels. Since late 2022, when the ban was enforced across Afghanistan, particularly in the southwest where opium production had been concentrated, the remote northeastern province of Badakhshan became the epicentre of poppy cultivation. In 2025, the Taliban’s efforts in Badakhshan to deter farmers from growing poppy in lower irrigated areas have had some success. However, the crop has moved into rainfed areas where much more land is available, and poppy fields are much larger, with a lower risk of eradication. There is also a notable increase in poppy fields in Helmand and parts of southwest Afghanistan this year, especially in more remote areas where there is evidence of a growing number of contiguous fields visible from the road. Very small fields of poppy have also reemerged in some of the eastern districts, including in Kapisa and Nangarhar. Experience shows that small plots of poppy during a ban are typically “seed beds”: a test to see if the authorities react, also providing a supply of seeds for a more sizeable crop in subsequent years. Combined, these and other indicators suggest that the poppy ban is under strain, and there is a risk of a return to more widespread cultivation across Afghanistan for the 2026 harvest.

However, it is events in Pakistan, and to some extent Iran, that is the most dramatic development of this poppy season and has the potential to transform the region's opium industry.  Imagery shows expansive poppy cultivation in Balochistan province in southwest Pakistan, with poppy fields exceeding one hectare, and individual farms of more than five, the latter a rarity in Afghanistan even in the years when opium production was at its most prolific. This rise in cultivation has been supported by the technical know-how that led to the concentration of poppy in the former desert areas of southwest Afghanistan. This includes the use of solar-powered deep wells for the extraction of groundwater, and an influx of Afghan farmers, many of whom now cultivate poppy in Balochistan as tenants or under sharecropping arrangements. This dramatic uptick in opium poppy cultivation in Balochistan highlights the absence of viable economic alternatives for the land-poor in Helmand and the southwest, but also the ease with which people can still cross the Afghanistan-Pakistan border despite the restrictions imposed by the Pakistani authorities and their efforts to return Afghan refugees. It is also further evidence of the resilience of drug markets upstream, and how those involved in drugs production adapt and innovate, and how supply has been maintained to European markets despite three consecutive years of a Taliban ban.

Cultivation in Badakhshan persists and could increase further in 2025

In the more accessible irrigated areas of Badakhshan, the Taliban’s efforts to deter farmers from planting poppy in the fall of 2024 had some success, but cultivation has increased in the remote rainfed lands. In the fall planting season, farmers divided their poppy crop between irrigated and rainfed lands, planting some of their fields with poppy, while leaving many others fallow, as they waited to see if the provincial authorities would mount an effective eradication campaign. With crop destruction in the province delayed until late April 2025, many farmers planted more poppy during the spring season in late March in irrigated and rainfed areas, raising the prospect of an overall rise in poppy cultivation in Badakhshan.

Furthermore, while poppy cultivation continues in irrigated areas, albeit at lower levels compared to 2024, the land available in rainfed areas is much larger, and poppy fields are often in excess of one hectare (see Figure 1). Grown some distance from the road and only accessible on foot, this mountain crop is lower-yielding but far less likely to be destroyed by the Taliban’s eradication efforts. This relocation of poppy fields to rainfed areas may mitigate some of the risk of farmers losing their crop, but also reduces the potential for the kind of widespread resistance that was seen in the spring of 2024 in the central parts of Argo and Darayem, where poppy cultivation was most concentrated.

Figure 1: Rainfed poppy fields in Badakhshan, June 2025.

While continued poppy cultivation will have allowed some households in Badakhshan to acquire capital, their economic position remains vulnerable in the absence of viable economic alternatives to opium production. Ultimately, small landholdings and lower yields restrict the amount of opium that farmers in Badakhshan can store to a few kilograms, which offers little respite from the economic effects of the Taliban’s efforts to deter planting and to destroy the poppy crop. In fact, detailed livelihood analysis shows just how dependent farmers in Badakhshan are on opium production, with none of the current agricultural alternatives (except cannabis) providing sufficient income for households to meet their basic needs (see Figure 2). The lack of employment opportunities in the province during the winter (which lasts up to five months of the year), further increases the population's reliance on poppy cultivation and the daily wage labour opportunities the crop creates during spring and summer when there is a considerable amount of work weeding and harvesting the crop.

Figure 2: Potential net returns on different winter and summer cropping patterns in Badakhshan.

So far this year, the provincial authorities have focused their eradication efforts along the main highway and have avoided the more densely populated irrigated areas near the district centres of Argo and Darayem, where their eradication efforts in 2024 were met with widespread unrest. However, the risk of resistance to the ongoing eradication campaign remains high given the scale of cultivation and the degree to which the rural population remains dependent on opium production to meet their basic needs. Moreover, while less likely to be destroyed by the Taliban, the rainfed crop is vulnerable to drought and is at risk of failure. The combination of eradication in irrigated areas and a low-yielding rainfed crop may pose a significant threat to the livelihoods of farmers in Badakhshan, compelling a much larger number of households in Badakhshan to send their working-age males to Iran, or even further afield.

The ban in southwest Afghanistan continues, but increases in poppy cultivation are expected in 2025

Imagery shows that poppy cultivation in Helmand province, previously Afghanistan’s poppy capital, will remain substantially lower than in 2022, but there are increases this year. Although we are not currently able to offer a full quantitative imagery-based estimate of the amount of poppy cultivation in 2025, high-resolution imagery suggests some significant shifts, most notably a larger number of poppy fields in northern and central Helmand compared to 2024 (see Figures 3 and 4).  In the most accessible areas near provincial and district centres, poppy fields remain small (less than 300 square metres) and isolated, and farmers make serious efforts to conceal their crops. However, in the remote parts of the northern districts of Helmand, as well as in former desert areas, poppy fields are contiguous and visible from the roadside, indicating farmers are becoming less deterred by the Taliban drugs ban (see Figure 5).

Figure 3: Changes in poppy cultivation in Laskargah in central Helmand

Figure 4: Changes in poppy cultivation in Nawzad in northern Helmand

Figure 5: Patterns of poppy cultivation in central Helmand, 2025 

Crop destruction by the authorities appears to have been more limited in the southwest this year compared to 2024. This may be a function of the logistical challenges of eradicating the increasing number of fields that have been planted, but it might also be a consequence of the growing economic difficulties faced by larger numbers of the land-poor, as local authorities wish to avoid unrest. While many landed farmers still hold substantial opium stocks and will retain a favourable view of the ban due to its role in inflating the opium price, the economic situation of the land-poor continues to deteriorate. Those who sharecrop land typically earn a net income of less than US$1 per person per day in the absence of opium poppy cultivation (see Figure 6).  As there are insufficient job opportunities available locally, these farmers cannot meet their basic needs, and there is evidence that a growing number are migrating to Balochistan in Pakistan to cultivate poppy.

Figure 6: Example of net income earned by sharecroppers in southwestern Afghanistan under current cropping systems

Of growing concern are those landed farmers with less than two hectares of land in the surface irrigated areas of Helmand, who cannot meet basic needs from agriculture alone, and do not have access to non-farm income (see Figure 7). These farmers face a bleak future as they begin to exhaust their opium stockpiles, which proved so critical for their livelihoods in the years since the poppy ban was imposed. The continued fall in opium prices only hastens this process, as those who still retain stocks are compelled to sell greater amounts of opium to meet their household expenses. Yet another year of the poppy ban will increase the number of farmers left destitute by the poppy ban and increase the likelihood of outmigration, crime, and resistance to the Taliban imposed poppy ban.

Figure 7: Potential net returns on different winter and summer cropping patterns in surface irrigated and former desert lands of the southwest 

It is also likely that the widening economic disparity between the landed and the landless, and between those who have opium stocks and those who do not, as well as an increase in petty crime, will worsen if the ban continues and as a growing number of landed farmers with smaller landholdings exhaust their opium stocks. There is also a risk that even those most advantaged by the Taliban drugs ban – those with significant landholdings and inventory – will turn against the ban long before their stocks are completely depleted, conscious of their privileged economic position and fearful of the growing hostility they will face from within their own communities. If there is a significant increase in the number of destitute landed farmers in Helmand and the southwest, and they attempt to return to poppy cultivation, the Taliban would face a difficult decision: either to use greater amounts of coercion against some of its core supporters (and fighters) to deter cultivation, or to turn a blind eye and allow widespread poppy cultivation to resume.

The “Balloon Effect” at work: Rising poppy cultivation in Pakistan and to a lesser extent Iran with Afghan farmers at the forefront

Contrary to expectations, opium prices have continued to fall despite what would appear to be a third consecutive year of low levels of cultivation in Afghanistan. While there was a slight uptick in the price of opium due to the onset of the harvest in Badakhshan and the southwest, it has been marginal, and overall, prices have tracked downwards since their peak in December 2023 (see Figure 8). Importantly, there continues to be a ready supply of opium in Afghanistan from inventory held in the southwest, ongoing widespread cultivation in Badakhshan, and greater efficiencies in processing and the more widespread use of adulterants in Afghanistan. This, in turn, has driven less competitive producers out of business and ensured a continued supply of, albeit adulterated, opiates for downstream markets in the region and in Europe.

Figure 8: Opium prices from October 2022 to April 2025, USD.

However, perhaps the greatest factor driving down opium prices in Afghanistan has been the dramatic increase in poppy cultivation in neighbouring Pakistan and Iran. Iranian media have noted a marked increase in the availability of locally produced opium, in part due to the increase in the price of Afghan opium in Iran following the Taliban ban, noting cultivation in several provinces including Kermanshar, Yazd, Kerman, Khuzestan, Kohgiluyeh, Fars, and Sistan and Baluchestan.  Increased poppy cultivation is also reported in Pakistan, in Sindh, the more mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but of much greater concern in the southwestern province of Balochistan, where there is an almost unlimited supply of desert land that could be cultivated.

In fact, satellite imagery shows a dramatic uptick in the amount of agricultural land in the former desert areas of several districts of Balochistan since the Taliban takeover and then the imposition of the poppy ban in Afghanistan in April 2022 (see Figure 9). This year, poppy density in Balochistan is extremely high in some places, with the crop occupying as much as seventy per cent of the agricultural land. Moreover, in contrast to poppy cultivation in Helmand in 2025, individual poppy fields are typically larger than one hectare and contiguous, with some farms cultivating more than five hectares of poppy (see Figure 10). 

Figure 9: Change in the amount of land under agriculture in selected districts of Balochistan, Pakistan 2021 to 2024.

Figure 10: Large poppy fields in Duki, in Balochistan, Pakistan

Given the scale and nature of poppy cultivation in Balochistan, it is likely that the area of cultivation in Pakistan will be greater than in Afghanistan this year (see Figure 11). For example, high-resolution imagery analysis identified 8,100 hectares of poppy in just two small areas of Balochistan: Duki in the district of Loralai, and Gulistan in Killa Abdullah (see Figures 12 and 13). Less granular imagery, as well as other reporting, documents that the crop has been grown in multiple districts of Balochistan, including in areas hundreds of kilometres from the Afghan border, as well as in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the merged districts, and Sindh. As such, while we cannot currently offer a satellite-based quantitative assessment of cultivation for 2025, it seems likely that the area under poppy cultivation in Pakistan this year will number in the tens of thousands of hectares. With opium yields in Balochistan of up to 56 kilogrammes per hectare, increased production in Pakistan is likely to ease the pressure on opiates in regional markets, as well as those downstream in Europe.

Figure 11: Panoramic view of extensive opium poppy cultivation near Duki in Loralai from social media post in Balochistan

Figure 12: Poppy cultivation in southern Loralai, near Duki, in Balochistan, Pakistan.

Figure 13: Poppy cultivation near Gulistan, Balochistan, Pakistan.

Evidence also suggests that this rise in poppy cultivation in Balochistan has been supported by the technical know-how that led to the concentration of poppy in the former desert areas of southwest Afghanistan, including the use of solar-powered deep wells for the extraction of groundwater, and an influx of land poor Afghan farmers accomplished in poppy cultivation (see Figure 14). Between 2009 and 2012, it was this same process, and the imposition of a ban under Gulab Mangal, then Governor of Helmand, and the “Food Zone” program, that led to increasing numbers of farmers moving to the former desert lands of southwestern Afghanistan to grow poppy. However, when widespread poppy cultivation returned to central Helmand in 2014 following the withdrawal of international military forces and the Afghan Republic, it also continued in the former desert areas, resulting in an unprecedented 328,000 hectares of poppy by 2017.

Figure 14: Solar-powered deep wells used to irrigate poppy in Gulistan, Killa Abdullah, Balochistan

It is also apparent that crop destruction has been limited in Pakistan. In Balochistan, imagery shows evidence of a campaign to destroy the crop, but it had little effect even in more accessible areas that are close to the roads (see Figure 15). With good yields, relatively high prices, and a skilled migratory labour force from Afghanistan, widespread poppy cultivation in Balochistan has proven viable this year, raising the potential for further increases in the future.  With an estimated 1.4 million hectares of cultivated land in 2024 but a further 1.6 million hectares of agricultural land that remains fallow, there is the risk that Balochistan could fast become a significant hub for opium production in the coming years, as a direct result of the Taliban drugs ban.  

Figure 15: Limited poppy eradication in Duki, Balochistan, Pakistan 

This development, coupled with increased opium cultivation in Iran, has the potential to reshape the region’s opiate industry. It is worth noting that it took decades for Pakistan, with substantial levels of international assistance, to become poppy free in 1999 and 2000. Whilst there has been small-scale opium cultivation in Pakistan since then, even in the recent years, the ingredients exist for large-scale  poppy cultivation in Balochistan. The situation would be further compounded if the Taliban’s drug ban fails and opium cultivation returns to Afghanistan across many provinces.

A market that continues to adapt and innovate to maintain supplies downstream

The rise in poppy cultivation in Balochistan in 2025 is dramatic and says much about how drugs markets adapt in response to restrictions like the Taliban ban. The transfer of skills, equipment, know-how and people from southwestern Afghanistan to Balochistan shows how porous the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan remains, despite the significant restrictions by the Pakistani authorities and their large investments in efforts to construct a fence. Since the Taliban takeover in 2021, Balochistan has become an increasingly important transit route for a variety of licit and illicit goods, as well as for the production of drugs. In parallel, there has been an increase in the presence and variety of armed groups operating there and predating on the value chains, including the People’s Resistance Movement of Iran, Islamic State–Khorasan Province, the Balochistan Liberation Army, and a multitude of government agencies. Given the potential revenues that could be earned from the different goods produced and transiting Balochistan, this could present a growing challenge to the Pakistani government.

Currently, little is known about the potential markets for the much greater amounts of opium produced in Pakistan and to a lesser extent Iran. It is most likely that much of the increased opium production in Iran will be consumed domestically, given the history of local consumption and reports in the media of users moving away from higher-cost, high-quality Afghan opium. There is much greater uncertainty regarding the potential destination for the much larger volumes of opium produced in Pakistan. Generally, opium produced in Balochistan is thought to be of lower quality, and there is a preference for using better quality local opium for producing morphine and other derivatives, drawing on what continues to be substantial inventories and continued production in Afghanistan. As such, “Pakistani opium” routed to Afghanistan tends to be adulterated, dried, and sent to Iran. As such, while the results of increased poppy cultivation in Balochistan and Iran may not find their way downstream, it could mitigate pressures on opium stocks in Afghanistan, and along with improved conversion rates and adulterants, allow traders to maintain flows to premium markets in Europe despite the continuing poppy ban in Afghanistan.

David Mansfield has been conducting research on illicit economies in Afghanistan and on its borders each year since 1997. David has a PhD in development studies and is the author of “A State Built on Sand: How opium undermined Afghanistan.” He has produced more than eighty research-based products on rural livelihoods and cross-border economies, many for the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, and working in close partnership with Alcis. David was also the lead researcher on the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s Counter Narcotics: Lessons from the US Experience in Afghanistan, covering the period from 2002- 2017.